Cbriettaniti^ 




FROM ST. PAUL TO 
BISHOP BROOKS 



ByW.E.GABDNEB 




Class ::::^2l^su. 

Book 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



The History of Christianity 



A Four Years' Course of Instruction for 
Sunday Schools 



General Title : The History of Christianity. 
First Year : The Preparation for Christianity. 
Second Year: The Life of the Founder of 

Christianity. 
Third Year : The Christianity of the Apostles. 
Fourth Year : The History of Christianity from 

Saint Paul to Bishop Brooks. 



The 
History of Christianity 

From Saint Paul to Bishop Brooks 



A Manual for General 
Reading and for Use 
in the Sunday Schools 



By 

WILLIAM EDWARD GARDNER 

Rector of the Church of the Holy Name, Swampscott, Mass. 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS WHITTAKER 

2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE 



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THE L{BRA9Y OF 

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Copyriglit, 1902, 
By Thomas Whittaker 



Preface 

It is no easy task to condense in a few pages and in 
simple language an account of the development of 
the greatest force in history. But I have felt strongly 
that Christian men and women can never understand 
each other, can never have genuine Christian sympathy 
until they have some knowledge of the paths along 
which their forefathers came, some realization of the 
causes which have made them what they are. The 
narrowness of the past was due to the inability of men 
to appreciate the idea of growth. The broad Chris- 
tian brotherhood of the future depends upon a com- 
prehensive view of Christian development. 

Thus this manual is prepared for persons seeking, 
in brief moments, knowledge of Christianity, and for 
Sunday-school scholars who are to be the future ex- 
ponents of Christianity. To-day there is a great 
breach in our Sunday-school instruction. The scholar 
studies the Bible, but the Christianity he thus learns 
about is so different from the Christianity in which he 
lives, that he fails to connect the life of to-day with 
the life of the first century. To help to that end is 
the object of this book. 

5 



6 PREFACE 

This book is the conclusion of a four years' course 
in the history of Christianity. The course is as 
follows : 

I. Preparation for Christianity. Jesus Christ fore- 
told in the history of the Jewish nation from Abraham 
to John the Baptist. 

II. The Life of the Founder of Christianity, Our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

III. The Christianity of the Apostles. 

IV. The History of Christianity from Saint Paul 
to Bishop Brooks. 

The book tries to fulfil the newer system of teach- 
ing : and presents under one cover a text-book and a 
note-book with questions suggesting topics of study. 
By this form it also tries to meet the necessity and 
convenience of our present Sunday-school conditions. 

It is too much to expect that the pages are free 
from error, and I have not hoped to present con- 
troversial material in a way acceptable to all teachers, 
but my purpose has been to make scholars realize 
that God has a plan in history, and that every one who 
is in harmony with His great plan is sure to be suc- 
cessful. If I have accomplished this, then I have 
succeeded. 

Swampscotty Mass., October, igo2. 



Introduction 

The awakened interest on the part of the Christian 
Church in the reHgious education of the youth, and 
the demand for better methods of study in our Sunday- 
schools, assure a welcome to every earnest effort in 
these directions. This is the ground for my confidence 
that a cordial welcome will be given to this book. Its 
methods and contents have stood the test of experi- 
ence, and its line of thought is such as to be helpful to 
parents as well as to Sunday-school teachers and 
scholars. I take pleasure, therefore, in commending 
this book as a helpful contribution towards the great 
work of religious instruction. 

William Lawrence, 
Bishop of Massachusetts. 

October ^7, igo2. 



Contents 



DIVISION ONE 



THE BEGINNING 



1. Introduction, 

2. Jews and Christians, . . . • 

3. The Fall of Jerusalem, . 

4. Christian Martyrs : Ignatius and Polycarp, 

5. General Persecutions and Christian Victories, 

6. Early Organization, .... 

7. Two Organizers : Tertullian and Cyprian, 
.8. Creed, ...... 

9. The Missionary Spirit, .... 

10. The Worship and Life of Early Christians, 

11. Fall of Paganism, .... 

12. The General Councils. Arius and Athanasius 

13. Leo First, 

14. Rise of Monasticism and Augustine, 

15. Missionary Activity, .... 



13 

17 
21 

23 
28 

30 
32 
35 
37 
37 
38 
41 
46 

48 
54 



DIVISION TWO 



THE MIDDLE AGES 

16. Fall of the East, 57 

17. Beginning of the West, ...... 58 

18. Two Centres of the Middle Ages, 60 

19. Rise of Papacy. Gregory the Great, 590-604, . . 61 

20. Rise of the Empire. Charlemagne (Charles the Great), 

768-814, 64 

9 



10 



CONTENTS 



21. 
22, 

23- 



24. 



Development of Monasticism, . . . 

Papacy in Full Power. Gregory Hildebrand, 1073-1085, 

Events During Papal Supremacy, . 

1. The Crusades, 

2. The Inquisition, 

3. Saint Francis of Assisi, 1 182-1226 
Abuse of the Papal Power, . 
Reforming Forces, .... 

1. Wiclif, 1 324- 1 384, . 

2. Huss, 1369-1415 



67 
70 

74 
74 
77 
79 

83 
86 

87 
90 



DIVISION THREE 





THE REFORMATION 








26. 


The New Spirit, . 93 


27. 


Reformation in Germany. Martin Luther, 1483-1546 


95 


28. 


Reformation in France. John Calvin, 1509- 15 64, 


102 


29. 


Reformation in England, 


106 




I. Henry the Eighth, . 






107 




2. The Bible and Prayer Book, . 






no 




3. The Dissolution of the Monasteries, 






112 




4. Edward the Sixth, . 






114 




5. Reaction under Mary First, 






114 




6. Spanish Armada, 






"5 


30. 


Counter Reformation, .... 

1. The Order of Jesuits, 

2. Council of Trent, 






117 
117 
120 


31- 


Protestant Spirit, . . . 






121 


32- 


Puritans and Pilgrims, .... 

1. Oliver Cromwell, 1599-1658, . 

2. John Milton, 1608- 167 5, . 

3. John Bunyan, 1628- 1688, 






123 
124 
127 
129 


33- 


Puritan Emigration, .... 






^31 


34. 


The Fall of Puritanism, . . 






132 


35- 


Rise of Denominations, 






133 


36. 


Translations of the Bible, 






137 


37- 


Age of Reason, 






^3>1 



CONTENTS 



II 



DIVISION FOUR 



THE NEW LIGHT 

38. Methodism and John Wesley, 1 703-1 791, 

39. Immanuel Kant, 17 24- 1804, . 

40. Friedrich Schleiermacher, 1768-1834, . 

41. The Oxford Movement, . 

42. Rise of Sunday-schools, 

43. Public Education, 

44. Christian Heroes of the Nineteenth Century, 

45. David Livingstone, 1807-1873, 

46. Lord Shaftesbury, .... 

47. William E. Gladstone, .... 

48. Phillips Brooks, . .... 



141 
145 

149 

152 

157 
161 

165 



The History of Christianity from 
St. Paul to Bishop Brooks 



DIVISION ONE 

THE BEGINNING 



I. Introduction. 

In studying these pages we must understand, first 
of all, how Christianity, which was the child of the 
Jewish religion, came to spread over the world. 

There were many reasons to prevent its spreading ; 
(i) Its Founder had been condemned and crucified as a 
criminal. (2) The Romans hated it, because they 
hated the Jews and they made no distinction between 
Judaism and Christianity. (3) The Jews, out of 
whose reHgion it grew, hated and condemned it. 

But Christianity has seemed to thrive and grow 
strong on hatred and persecution. Its success, in 
spite of obstacles, makes us believe it is God's 
message, God's revelation to us, for God's truth always 
prevails. 

13 



14 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

The first obstacle to the promotion of Christianity 
came from the priestly authorities at Jerusalem. 
Annas and Caiaphas, the very priests who had con- 
demned Christ, arrested Peter and John for teaching 
the new religion in the Temple. A little later that 
zealous young man, Stephen, the deacon, was arrested, 
falsely accused of speaking blasphemy, and stoned to 
death. This event was the signal for a general per- 
secution by the Jews, of the Christians in Jerusalem. 
It seems hard to say that the persecution was a good 
thing for the future of Christianity ; but it was. It 
compelled the Christians to leave Jerusalem, where 
they could never be successful, and to go to Samaria, 
to the coasts of the Mediterranean, to Phoenicia and 
Cyprus, and at last to Antioch, the emperial capital 
of the Eastern Empire. 

There appeared Paul the great missionary, the great 
traveler who journeyed over the Roman world, 
visited these Christian communities, established others 
and kept himself in touch with all of them by letters 
and messengers. 

These communities were not churches as we know 
them to-day. They were little household companies 
of men and women who came together when the 
work of the day was done, and read St. Paul's letters, 
recited some of the stories of Jesus Christ, which had 



THE BEGINNING 1$ 

not been written then, but which now are written in 
the four gospels. After the reading they would pray 
and sing, worshiping God. 

There were three things in this simple life which we 
should notice : (i) Great reverence for the Apostles. — 
All of these communities were under the guidance 
of the Apostles. James was the head at Jerusalem, 
John at Ephesus, Paul had oversight in Corinth, 
Thessalonica, Antioch and other cities. The early 
Christians had great veneration for those Apostles to 
whom Christ gave the great responsibility of proclaim- 
ing the gospel, or as they loved to call it the " Word 
of God." They recognized that Christ did not leave 
His gospel to be proclaimed by everybody, although 
He wanted every man, woman and child to be 
disciples. What is every one's business is no one's 
business, thus Christ especially called the twelve to 
Him (John 20: 21, 22; Matt. 28: 18), and kept them 
near Him, teaching them. The early Christians saw 
the wisdom of this plan, and came to recognize that 
in that close companionship the Apostles had come to 
know, best of all men, Christ's real spirit. Thus 
when any question came up for settlement, the early 
Christians would turn to the Apostles for council and 
direction. In this way the Apostles soon became, not 
only the spiritual leaders, but also leaders in practical 



1 6 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

affairs. As Christianity spread these Apostles chose 
men to become leaders in new places under their 
direction (Titus 1:5), and when the Apostles died, 
their important duties were given to others, who were 
not called apostles but overseers or ** bishops," and 
these in turn became to the Christian communities 
expecially responsible under Christ's command to 
promote the gospel. 

(2) Baptism. — Not only did they learn from Christ 
that He would have His gospel proclaimed by men espe- 
cially chosen, but they also learned from Him, that they 
should receive the sacrament of baptism (John 3 : 3-5). 
'* The outward and visible sign " of washing by water 
should become the evidence of the " inward and 
spiritual grace " with its " death unto sin and a new 
birth unto righteousness " and a desire for a nobler and 
higher life. 

Such a sacrament, performed as Christ commanded, 
meant that all, young and old, who embraced it, be- 
came, by striving to be faithful in following Christ's 
life, children of God and inheritors of the life of the 
new kingdom. 

(3) The Lord's Supper. — And lastly Christ insti- 
tuted a special service by which His followers could 
worship, testifying their allegiance to Him, and receiv- 
ing strength to live the true life (i Cor. 11:23-29). 



THE BEGINNING * 1/ 

This service was called the Lord's Supper, and was 
celebrated the first day of the week (Acts 20 : 7). This 
supper is a sacrament. Like baptism it has an " out- 
ward and visible sign " : bread and wine, and it has 
also " an inward and spiritual grace," signified by the 
Body and Blood of Christ, " spiritually taken and re- 
ceived " by Christians. This service was very impor- 
tant to the early Christians and should be to all Chris- 
tians of all times, because commanded by Christ Him- 
self who put a special emphasis upon it. Read John 
6:51-56. 

2. Jews and Christians. 

In spite of these provisions for the definite expres- 
sion of the new religion, the early Christians would 
look back to the mother religion. Though Judaism 
persecuted them, they could not seem to break with 
it. Wherever Christianity had been carried over the 
empire, its converts still felt that the Christian com- 
munity at Jerusalem, where the Apostles abode, was 
the head of Christianity, just as the temple was the 
head of Judaism. If any dispute arose, they felt that 
it should be taken to Jerusalem for settlement (Acts 
15). Then as Christ had always attended the Jewish 
synagogues, so did the early Christians, going to the 
Jewish places of worship in Rome, Antioch, Corinth 
and other cities. 



1 8 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

As Christians dispersed over the world, they were 
confused with the Jews, bearing the burden of holding 
an unpopular religion, and sharing the hatred which 
the Romans had for the Jews. But still Christianity 
flourished and grew stronger day by day. The one 
great reason was : it answered the needs, moral and 
spiritual of the human soul. Other reasons were : (i) 
Its care for the poor and helpless, pagan as well as 
Christian. (2) Its respect for the slave as a child of 
God and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. (3) 
The heroic way in which the Christians suffered when 
persecuted. The sympathies of men and women were 
aroused, and a desire awakened to know more of this 
religion which made one so able to bear physical pain. 

Little by little some of the Christians realized that 
they could not continue in the Jewish community. 
Among the first to break were those in Rome. Cast- 
ing themselves loose from connection with the syna- 
gogue, a Roman Christian community was established 
which gained much prominence. 

It was to this community that the Roman Emperor 
turned after the burning of Rome in 64 A. d. It is 
generally believed though not proven, that Nero or- 
dered the burning of Rome in order that he might 
rebuild it. The people who suffered in this fire sus- 
pected him and began to assume a threatening atti- 



THE BEGINNING 1 9 

tude. Nero sought to divert suspicion from himself 
by throwing the blame on the Christians to whom the 
people already attributed all sorts of infamy. For 
first hand information we will turn to Tacitus the 
Roman historian ' who lived and wrote about thirty 
years after the event.' "With this view, he (Nero) 
accused those men who under the appellation of 
Christians were already branded with deserved infamy. 
They derived their name and origin from Christ, who 
in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sen- 
tence ' of the procurator Pontius Pilate. For a while 
this dire superstition was checked, but it again burst 
forth, and not only spread itself over Judea, the first 
seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced 
into Rome, the common asylum which receives and 
protects whatever is impure,^ whatever is atrocious. 
The confessions of those who were seized discovered 
a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were 
all convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire 
to the city, as for their hatred of human kind. They 
died in torments. Some were nailed on crosses ; 
others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed 
to the fury of dogs ; others again, smeared over with 
combustible materials, were used as torches to illumi- 
nate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero 
were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was 



20 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

accompanied with a horse race, and honored with the 
presence of the Emperor, who mingled with the pop- 
ulace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The 
guilt of the Christians deserved the more exemplary 
punishment, but the public abhorrence was changed 
into commiseration, from the opinion that those un- 
happy wretches were sacrificed not so much to public 
welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant." 

In this passage from a Roman writer we can gain 
many ideas, (i) Christians were numerous and at- 
tracted attention. (2) There was popular hatred 
against them, people beheved them capable of mon- 
strous crimes. (3) Under Nero they suffered untold 
agonies and many died. (4) They were the objects of 
Roman sympathy. These persecutions in Rome were 
the beginning of many pagan persecutions which lasted 
during the first three hundred years of the Christian 
Era. 

In spite of all the persecution by Jews and pagans 
the new religion remained Jewish in its form. They 
had priests and elders (Acts ii : 30) as in the old relig- 
ion ; they read the Old Testament and observed many 
of the Mosaic laws. How far this would have contin- 
ued we cannot say. The tendency to make Chris- 
tianity like Judaism was stopped by one event — The 
destruction of Jerusalem. 



THE BEGINNING 21 

3. The Fall of Jerusalem. 

That Judaism was beginning to decay was evident 
in the condemnation and crucifixion of Christ by the 
priests and elders. In their narrowness and bigotry 
the Jewish people were in constant conflict with the 
Roman conquerors. Soon after Christ's death a pow- 
erful Jewish party began a determined insurrection. 
It was an unequal combat. Rome could crush the 
Jews as a lion would crush a mouse. With great de- 
liberation the Roman army under Vespasian swept 
over Galilee and made the land desolate. 

Arriving before Jerusalem, Titus, the son of 
Vespasian assumed command. Within the city, in- 
stead of unity, there was great confusion. Different 
leaders struggled among themselves for leadership, so 
that the people prayed for the arrival of the Romans 
to end the terrible civil condition. The end soon 
came. It was the Passover week of 70 A. d. Thou- 
sands were in the sacred city, some were there because 
of the Passover custom, many were there because 
driven in by the advance of the Roman army. 

As Titus rode around the city, he viewed a strong 
fortress. Behind three high thick walls rose the 
beautiful Temple " like a mount of snow fretted with 
golden pinnacles." Night and day the Romans toiled 
until their battering-rams and great machines for the 



22 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

discharge of arrows and stones were in place. Then 
the siege began. Day after day it continued. The 
Jews fought desperately. Once when a breach was 
made in the wall, " they manned it boldly and made a 
wall of their own bodies, fighting three days without 
intermission." As one wall after another was taken 
and the people were crowded towards the Temple, the 
famine within became more terrible than the besiegers 
without. Miserable morsels were seized from young 
children and old men, and the wealthy were tortured 
until they opened their stores. 

When Titus reached the Temple wall, he called for 
surrender, that its sacred courts might not be soiled 
with bloodshed. The Jews refused to comply with 
his commands and after many days of fighting the 
Temple was destroyed by fire, a Roman soldier having 
thrown a fire brand over its walls. Over a milHon 
Jews were killed in the siege and over one hundred 
thousand sent to the Roman mines. 

In the destruction of the Temple there came to an 
end the Jewish nation that formed the centre of Old 
and New Testament time. The Temple has never 
been rebuilt, a sacrifice has never since been offered. 
How completely was Christ's prophecy fulfilled " For 
the days shall come upon thee, when thine enemies 
shall cast up a bank about thee, and compass thee 



THE BEGINNING 23 

round and keep thee in on every side, and shall dash 
thee to the ground, and thy children within thee ; and 
they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another " 
(Luke 19 : 43). In the destruction of Jerusalem, " the 
cradle of Christianity ceased to be its nursery. So it 
forgot the tongue of its birthplace and learned the 
speech of its new motherland." 

4. Christian Martyrs : Ignatius and Polycarp. 

We have now to see how Christianity made its way 
in the Roman world. We have already seen that the 
Romans hated the Jews and Christians alike. This 
hatred was due in large measure to the conflict be- 
tween the Roman and Christian idea of worship. The 
Roman worshiped idols and the Emperor as supreme ; 
the Christian worshiped Christ as King and would not 
bow down to the Emperor. For this reason the 
Romans considered the Christians enemies to the 
state, suspected them of high treason and guilty of 
death. 

It soon became the custom to lead a person accused 
of being a Christian to a little altar placed before an 
image of the Emperor. If the Christian would throw 
some incense on the altar fire, he was acquitted, if he 
would not, he was condemned. 

To get a good idea of the life of this terrible 
time let us look at the lives of some of the men who 



24 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

lived then, and see how the Roman Empire and Chris- 
tian religion were in conflict. 

First we will go to Antioch, that beautiful cit}- in 
the north of Palestine, the capital of the eastern por- 
tion of the empire. A venerable man by the name 
of Ignatius was the bishop of the Christians. Igna- 
tius had known St. John and some of the other 
Apostles and had been urged by them to preside over 
the Church at Antioch. About fort}' years after the 
fall of Jerusalem, when Trajan, the Roman Emperor 
was visiting the cit}* of x\ntioch, it happened that 
there had just been a series of public disasters, and, as 
was the custom, the blame was laid on the Christians. 
The whole trouble was brought before the Emperor, 
and he commanded that Ignatius be arrested and 
brought before him. The account of the trial which 
has come down to us is as foUo^\^ : 

Being introduced into Trajan's presence he was 
thus addressed by him : " What an impious spirit art 
thou, both to transgress our commands and to inveigle 
others into the same folly to their ruin." Ignatius 
answered, " Theophorus ought not to be called so, for- 
asmuch as all wicked spirits are departed far from the 
servants of God. But if you call me impious because 
I am hostile to evil spirits, I own the charge in that 
respect, for I dissolve all their snares through the in- 



THE BEGINNING 25 

ward support of Christ the heavenly King." Trajan : 
" Pray, who is Theophorus ? " Ignatius : " He who 
has Christ in his breast." Trajan : " And thinkest 
thou not that gods reside in us, who fight for us 
against our enemies ? " Ignatius : " You mistake in 
calhng the demons of the nations by the name of 
gods ; for there is only one God, who made heaven 
and earth, the sea and all that is in them ; and one 
Jesus Christ, His only-begotten son, whose kingdom 
be my portion." Trajan : " His kingdom, do you 
say, who was crucified under Pilate?" Ignatius: 
" His, who crucified my sin with its author, and has 
put all the fraud and malice of Satan under the feet 
of those who carry Him in their heart." Trajan : 
" Dost thou then carry Him who was crucified within 
thee ? " Ignatius : " I do ; for it is written, I dwell in 
them and walk in them." Then Trajan pronounced 
this sentence against him : " Since Ignatius confesses 
that he carries within himself Him that was crucified, 
we command that he be carried, bound, by soldiers to 
great Rome, there to be thrown to the wild beasts for 
the entertainment of the people." 

Immediately after the trial the venerable bishop was 
started for Rome under a military escort. In those 
days it was a long, hard journey. If you wish to 
trace it on the map, it was as follows : first to Seleucia, 



26 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

thence they sailed to Smyrna, then Troas, NeapoHs 
across Macedonia, across the Adriatic and so around 
to PuteoH, Ostea, and Rome. In a way it was a tri- 
umphal journey, for all along the route, Christians 
came to offer sympathy and to receive the good 
bishop's teachings. When they reached Rome the 
games were in progress, the old man was hurried to 
the amphitheatre and the wild beasts were let loose 
upon him. Thus died one of the men who stands as 
a link between the Apostolic Days and the times we are 
studying. He preferred death to denying Christianity. 
When Ignatius stopped at Smyrna, among those 
who visited him was a man about forty-five years old, 
named Polycarp. He was a prominent bishop in the 
Eastern Church. He also had been a disciple of St. 
John who had appointed him Bishop of Smyrna. 
Tradition tells us that Polycarp was born a slave, and 
was reared in the house of a noble, Christian woman. 
This shows us that a slave as well as a freeman could 
become a bishop. Many years after Ignatius passed 
through Smyrna a plague swept over the land for 
which the Christians were blamed. In the persecution 
that was begun, Polycarp, then an old man, was urged 
to withdraw from the city for safety. Yielding to the 
persuasion of his friends, he sought shelter at a farm 
not far from the city, but his hiding-place was be- 



THE BEGINNING 2/ 

trayed by two Christian slaves under torture and al- 
though escape was made possible, yet the venerable 
bishop refused to avail himself of it. Seized by the 
^ soldiers the old man bowed his head and said, " The 
will of God be done." He then ordered food for his 
captors and spent in prayer the two hours they spent 
in resting and refreshing themselves. He was carried 
straight to the arena and the multitude was greatly 
excited by his appearance. When asked to retract, 
he refused. " Swear ! Retract ! Say : Away with 
the godless," cried the proconsul. Polycarp repeated 
the words, but the gesture of his hand showed that by 
" godless " he meant the fanatical spectators. ** Blas- 
pheme Christ ! " cried the proconsul, " and you shall 
go free ! " The aged man straightened up and re- 
plied : " Eighty and six years have I served Christ 
and He has never done me wrong. How can I blas- 
pheme my King who has saved me ? " Then the con- 
demnation came. The herald advanced into the 
middle of the arena and thrice proclaimed : " Poly- 
carp has professed himself a Christian." The popu- 
lace demanded that he be thrown to the Hons, shout- 
ing, " This is the overthrower of our gods, this is the 
perverter of our worship." But as the games were 
over there were no beasts left. Then went up the 
cry that he be burned. Naked and bound to the 



28 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

stake, Polycarp uttered a beautiful prayer in which he 
thanked God for being permitted to be a martyr. 
After the torch was appHed, and as the flames swept 
up around him, an officer plunged a sword into his 
body to lessen his agony. 

This wonderful sacrifice made a deep impression on 
the populace and the persecution at Smyrna ceased. 
Polycarp was a true hero of the early Christian days, 
of rare goodness and unfaltering faithfulness. 

5. General Persecutions and Christian Victories. 

We have studied the Hves of only two men who 
suffered as martyrs. There were many more. In fact, 
from the day Stephen was stoned, up to 300 A. d. the 
pagan people acted with more or less cruelty towards 
the Christians. 

From 50 A. D. to 250 a. d. the persecutions were 
carried on first in one place and then in another, due 
more or less to local disturbances. Up to this time 
there had been no order from the Emperor for a gen- 
eral persecution. But in 249 a. d. it was discovered 
by the Romans that the Christians had tremendous 
power. In Rome alone there were at least twenty 
thousand Christians. Then it was that the Emperor 
Decius ordered a general persecution of the Christians 
for the purpose of cutting them out of the life of the 
empire. This plan begun by Decius was followed to 



THE BEGINNING 29 

a greater or less degree by other emperors. Churches 
which had been built in the cities where a measure of 
toleration had been allowed, were destroyed ; sacred 
books were burned and Christians butchered by 
frenzied and almost insane soldiers. But all to no 
purpose. The greater the persecution the more the 
ranks of the Christians seemed to swell. Thousands 
of both sexes crowded to martyrdom, exhausted the 
fires and wearied the sword, until the Emperor Gale- 
rius (306-310) in sore sickness, recognized that he must 
draw back. While lying on his sick bed, he issued an 
edict of general toleration, and confessed that the 
Christians had conquered. The work thus begun was 
ended by Constantine, who, by an edict issued in 
Milan in 313, placed Christianity on the same level 
and gave it the same rights as paganism. 

To what was the victory of the Christians owing ? 
To the steadfastness and heroic courage of its follow- 
ers ? By no means. We must not think that all the 
Christians persecuted were like the Apostolic Chris- 
tians, like Ignatius and Polycarp. The Church had 
changed very much since their day. It had, in con- 
tact with the Roman world, partaken of the worldly 
spirit. Some of the clergy lived in luxury and idle- 
ness, while many who called themselves Christians 
lived lives of hatred, enmity, envy, ambition and 



30 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

worldly covetousness. Emperor Decius, in 250, de- 
scribes the Christians as men who had fallen from 
their ideal. Such Christians when they were threat- 
ened gave up their faith and cast incense on the altar 
fire in order to save their property, position and life. 
The number of faithless Christians was enormous. 
But still Christianity conquered, conquered in spite of 
the faithless ones, conquered because it had an imper- 
ishable light, an eternal power that sooner or later will 
always win. This is the wonder of Christianity, it 
" endures solely in consequence of the living power 
of its religion, it conquers by the power of divine 
truth which is mightier than all the powers of an 
earthly life." 

6. Early Organization. 

While all the persecutions were going on Christian- 
ity was being outwardly moulded by the empire, and 
in its divine strength was inwardly converting the 
empire. 

The clear stream cannot flow from, the mountain to 
the sea without being poisoned and discolored, by the 
various roots and clay over which it passes. Chris- 
tianity has had this experience. Again and again it 
has been, and is to-day, poisoned and discolored by 
the conditions it meets. This is a wonderful process 
with which we must not find fault, but which we 



THE BEGINNING 3I 

must study and understand and by which we must 
profit. 

We must appreciate the great difference between 
the Christian rehgion and the pagan rehgion. The 
simple worship of the Christians consisting of prayer, 
praise and reading, was not easily understood by the 
pagans. They had been accustomed to many gods 
with mysterious rites and symbols. Thus, as new con- 
verts came in, the Christian worship seemed cold and 
meaningless to them. To overcome this, the simple 
customs of the Christians were changed to satisfy the 
desires of the new converts. Baptism and the Lord's 
Supper became mysterious rites performed only in the 
presence of those who were already Christians. Beau- 
tiful vestments and spectacular ceremonials were 
adopted in order that the pagan converts might feel at 
home in the Christian Church. The demand of these 
pagan converts was for a rehgion that was visible, and 
the Christians gratified that demand. But the Roman 
converts demanded still more ; they loved order and 
formal government, they were used to being com- 
manded by those who had authority. This idea was 
wrought into Christianity. The Church came to have 
officers ; patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops, priests, 
deacons, acolytes, etc., who had duties to perform and 
authority to exercise. Long before Constantine, a 



32 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

bishop in the Church became a man of such importance, 
that when he went about he was dressed in gorgeous 
robes and followed by a retinue, like a prince. This 
was the result of simple Christians coming in contact 
with the wealth and power of a great empire. There 
was quite a difference between the Apostles Peter and 
John and the bishops of the fourth century. Slowly 
the way was being prepared for what actually hap- 
pened, viz. : a transformed Roman Empire, with a 
pope for the emperor, bishops for procurators, a priest- 
hood for magistrates, taxes, laws, — in fact a unified 
religious power that was to hold together for a time, a 
civilized world. 

7. Two Organizers: TertuUian and Cyprian. 

Prominent among those who were converted and 
who in turn influenced Christianity as above described, 
was TertuUian. 

He was born in Carthage about 160. He was the 
son of a Roman centurion and was brought up in a 
pagan household. As his home was in Carthage, one 
of the main seats of learning in the Roman Empire, 
it was possible for him to receive a scholarly educa- 
tion. He acquired the Greek language and literature, 
and particularly rhetoric and law. As a young man, 
he lived a wild and reckless life. Between thirty and 
forty he was converted to Christianity and became a 



THE BEGINNING 33 

presbyter in the church at Carthage. Here he brought 
to bear on the Church all his ability and especially did 
he leave a legal stamp on all his work. His was a fiery 
nature, rich in imagination, witty and fascinating, but 
endowed also with a good share of common sense and 
appreciation of what is solid and worth while. The 
elevation of the office of bishop to a position of great 
authority w^as due largely to him. He argued that 
Christ chose twelve apostles and destined them to be 
the teachers of nations. ** They then in like manner 
founded churches in every city, from which all the 
other churches, one after another, derived the tradition 
of the faith, and the seeds of doctrine, and are every 
day deriving them, that they may become churches. 
Indeed it is on this account only, that they will be able 
to deem themselves apostolic, as being of the offspring 
of ApostoHc churches." Such was his idea of the 
bishop, whom he endowed with special divine author- 
ity to proclaim the Gospel. '' Since the Lord Jesus 
Christ sent the Apostles to preach, no others ought to 
be received as preachers than those whom Christ ap- 
pointed, for no man knoweth the Father save the Son 
and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." 

Later in life TertulHan left the Church and joined 
one of the numerous sects that sprang up at this time 
Here he modified his views and made the Holy 



34 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Spirit of more importance than a bishop who could 
claim descent from an Apostle. We know little of his 
later life. His death is said to have taken place at 
about 220 when he was a very old man. It was with 
Tertullian that Christians began to write their books 
in Latin, before they had used Greek and a form of 
Hebrew called Aramaic. 

Another strong character of this time, who was 
converted from Paganism and in turn influenced 
Christianity strongly, was Cyprian. Born of a pagan 
family in Carthage, he, like Tertullian, was educated in 
law, and later became a teacher of rhetoric. He was 
converted when about thirty-five years old and passed 
rapidly through the first orders of the Christian minis- 
try. When the Bishopric of Carthage was vacant the 
people crowded around his house and forced him to 
take that honorable office. In the general persecu- 
tions, he was arrested and brought before the pro- 
consul. 

Proconsul : " Art thou Cyprian, the bishop of so 
many impious men ? The most sacred emperor com- 
mands thee to sacrifice ! " 

Cyprian : " I will not sacrifice ! " 
Proconsul : " Consider well what thou dost ! " 
Cyprian : " There is no need of consideration, do as 
thou art commanded." 



THE BEGINNING 35 

Then the proconsul delivered the sentence of con- 
demnation. " Cyprian, thou hast lived long in thy 
impiety, and assembled around thee many men in- 
volved in the same wicked conspiracy. Thou hast 
shown thyself an enemy alike to the gods and the 
laws of the empire. . . . Thou must expiate thy 
crime with thy blood." Cyprian repHed, " God be 
thanked." 

So affected were the multitude of Christians around 
him that they cried, " Let us go and be beheaded with 
him." He was removed to a neighboring field where 
he spent a short time in prayer. Then he gave a con- 
siderable present to the executioners, bowed his head 
and submitted to the stroke. The date of this was 
258 A. D. 

Cyprian had continued the work of Tertullian, em- 
phasizing the importance of the bishop and the need 
of transmitting the sacred powers of Christianity from 
one to another, claiming that in that transmission the 
Holy Spirit was carried on in the world. 

It is interesting to remember that the career of the 
Church as a legal institution was started by " two 
vigorous practical lawyers and politicians." 

8. Creed. 

While the Romans effected the organization of the 
Church, they also effected its faith. There was a 



36 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

general demand for a definite statement of the relation 
of God, to Christ and the Holy Spirit. There was 
need of an easily grasped standard which could be 
given to a man who wished to become a Christian. 
Out of these needs came various controversies, for 
men could not agree in regard to doctrinal statements. 
We will notice the effect of the controversy when we 
study the General Councils later. 

As a demand for a simple statement of faith, the 
creed known as the Apostles' came into existence. We 
know little about its origin. It first read as follows : 

" I beheve in God the Father Almighty ; and in 
Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord; who was born 
of the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin ; under 
Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried ; on the third 
day He rose from the dead ; He ascended into 
heaven ; He sitteth on the right hand of the Father ; 
from thence He shall come to judge the living and the 
dead ; and in the Holy Spirit ; the Holy Church ; the 
forgiveness of sins ; the resurrection of the flesh." 

What made this creed of value was that it confined 
itself to the actual events which were known to be 
true. This commended it to the Christian Church as 
it could be grasped by the simplest mind. We must 
think of the organization and Creeds of the Church as 
the outcome of Roman influence on Christianity. 



THE BEGINNING 37 

9. The Missionary Spirit. 

During these days described, there was great mis- 
sionary activity. All over the world, passed devoted 
souls, whose one purpose was to tell the Christian 
story to all nations. Their custom was to travel by 
twos, and sometimes in companies of twelve. We 
have traces of their work in Persia, India, Armenia, 
North Africa, Gaul, Britain, Rhine Provinces and 
many minor provinces. 

10. The "Worship and Life of Early Christians. 

Hand in hand with the formation of the organiza- 
tion and belief of the early Christians, grew the neces- 
sity of forming a symmetrical divine service. As the 
number of Christians increased it became impossible 
to hold services in private houses. When a public 
place was provided, the people assembled, the officers, 
sitting at a large table at one end of the room and the 
people standing before them. The first part of the 
service consisted of singing of psalms and hymns, 
prayers and an address or several addresses on the 
Old Testament scripture, or the Gospel story. After 
this part came the second. All who were not of the 
community were driven out and then the faithful who 
remained celebrated the Lord's Supper in a simple 
manner. 

The life was simple. If any one who attended the 



38 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

first part of the service was impressed and wished to 
join the community, he became what was called a 
catechumen, and after much instruction, was baptized 
and confirmed by the bishop. On Sunday they came 
together for prayer and the Lord's Supper, and on 
Wednesday and Friday they fasted in remembrance 
of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion. 

II. Fall of Paganism. 

We found that the early persecutions of the Chris- 
tians ended with Constantine. We now return to that 
character, for with him a new era began for Chris- 
tianity. 

Constantine (born 274, died 337) was the son of the 
Emperor Constantius. His mother, whose name was 
Helena, was a woman of humble birth. As a youth 
he became well known for his bravery and ability 
through the military service he performed in Egypt. 
He was greatly loved by the people who desired that he 
should become Emperor in place of two or three men 
who ruled over a divided empire. You must remem- 
ber that the Roman Empire was becoming very cor- 
rupt, and a sure sign of corruption is the striving of 
different men for the highest position. To become 
sole ruler Constantine was obliged to conquer the 
other men. It was in 312, while he was fighting bat- 
tles with these men, and being successful, that he said 



THE BEGINNING 39 

he had a vision of a cross of Hght in the sky with the 
words, " In This Conquer!' A httle later he claimed 
that he had a dream in which Christ came to him and 
told him to put the sign of the cross on his banner. 
We cannot say how true the vision and the dream 
were, but we do know that about this time the cross 
appeared as an army standard and in 313, the edict of 
Milan was put forth, which gave, " To the Christians 
and to all a free power of following the religion which 
each willed to choose," also the edict said that all 
property which had been destroyed should be restored 
" from the public treasury and by private persons, 
the latter to be indemnified out of the imperial good- 
will." This placed the religion of Christians along- 
side of paganism. Later (316) Sunday was recognized 
as a pubHc feast day and all public business was sus- 
pended. In 324 Constantine achieved his ambition 
and became, by conquest in battle, the sole ruler of 
the Roman Empire. With great thoroughness he 
extended the Christian faith and worship throughout 
the whole empire ; exiles sent away during the perse- 
cutions were recalled and offices of the highest dignity 
were offered to Christians. Churches were built on 
the Mount of Olives, at Bethlehem in the Holy Land 
and elsewhere, and were endowed out of the common 
fund. With great labor, many costly manuscripts of 



40 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

the Bible were made. Gradually popular passion 
turned against paganism, temples were torn down or 
remade into Christian churches, while the wicked, 
sacrificial and immoral pagan worship was suspended 
by order of the Emperor. 

During all these changes Constantine was not bap- 
tized. It was on his death-bed in 337 that he called 
the bishop and had himself clothed in a white robe 
and received that sacred rite. This, with other facts 
in Constantine's life, makes us feel that he was not at 
first a Christian by conversion. He believed in a 
divine guidance of human affairs, and he saw in Chris- 
tianity a great wholesome and uniting political power, 
and regarded himself as the instrument of Providence 
to make use of that same power for the good of the 
empire. 

Christianity^ had conquered paganism. From being 
a despised and persecuted sect, Christianity emerged a 
mighty and supreme religion upheld by the state. 
How wonderfully God works in life. The fall of Je- 
rusalem sent the Christians over the world, took away 
from them the mother element which might have 
weakened them, and compelled them to conquer the 
Roman world or die. Then the Romans persecuted 
them, but the persecutions instead of diminishing the 
number increased it, until the Emperor as a matter of 



THE BEGINNING 4 1 

policy was obliged to recognize the new religion. 
Thus will God aid any movement, any person, towards 
victory if there are present : — devotion to truth, ear- 
nestness and willingness to suffer. 

12. General Councils. Arius and Athanasius. 

Christianity had triumphed, but like any triumph, it 
had its dangers. With freedom, honor and power, 
greed and ambition greater than ever before, found 
their way into the Church. The greatest danger was 
in the fact that the state, no longer a foe, but an ally, 
demanded supremacy as the price of alliance. The 
Roman Emperor would not suffer another power to 
rule beside him. He had been the head of the Pagan 
religion, and he was inclined to exercise the same su- 
premacy over the new. Evidence of this is seen in 
the right he assumed to appoint bishops, to exercise 
jurisdiction in spiritual courts, to speak a deciding 
word in dogmatic controversies, and to summon coun- 
cils of the Christians. 

Already different sections had held councils or con- 
gresses where difficulties were settled. These sections 
were the natural group of cities and towns about the 
three important cities : — Rome, Alexandria and 
Antioch. Later to these centres were added Con- 
stantinople and Jerusalem, and these cities became the 
centres of the Church and their bishops were called 



42 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Patriarchs or Popes. Shortly after Constantine 
recognized Christianity, he decided to exercise his 
supremacy and call a general council of the whole 
Church. This council was summoned in the year 325 
at Nicaea, a little city about forty miles southeast of 
Constantinople. It is now a miserable Turkish village 
called Isnik. There w^ere present from fifteen hundred 
to two thousand bishops, priests and deacons from all 
parts of the empire. 

" The synod was solemnly opened in the central 
(the largest) hall of the palace, in which seats were set 
for the bishops on either hand. On a given sign the 
bishops rose from their seats and Constantine entered 
in dazzling robes and dignified demeanor, accom- 
panied not by a miHtary retinue, but by trusted 
friends ; he passed down the middle of the hall to the 
low (not throne-like) golden chair in a prominent po- 
sition, to which on both sides the seats of the bishops 
converged in a half circle ; but it was only on the ex- 
pression of the wish of the bishops that he took his 
seat. The bishop who occupied the first seat on the 
right side, now rose to make a poetical address to the 
Emperor and praise God for him, whereupon Con- 
stantine, with serene and friendly countenance looking 
round about him among the bishops, addressed them in 
a soft voice. He extolled this as the fulfilment of his 



THE BEGINNING 43 

deepest wish, that God, in addition to all other suc- 
cesses, had vouchsafed to him to see the representa- 
tives of the Church gathered around him in unanimity, 
and forcibly exhorted them to guard and maintain 
this peace, as most justly beseemed the servants of 
God." We must notice that there was no bishop from 
Rome present, he being an old man sent two priests, 
who took no part of importance in the council. 

The two men of greatest importance that must be 
remembered are Arius and Athanasius. The great- 
est debate of the session took place over two opposing 
ideas championed by these two men. Arius was an 
older man than Athanasius ; he was tall with fine cut, 
sharp features, very polite, elegant in dress, a keen 
mind, ready speech, good in logic, and a hard man to 
meet in argument. Although he came from Alexan- 
dria, he had been brought up in Antioch where he be- 
longed to a school which sharply separated the divine 
from the human. Arius tried to convince the council 
that God was very far away and beyond the humanity 
of the world, and that Christ was between God and 
man, above man and yet not equal to God. Arius was 
really reverting to a kind of Jewish religion with Christ 
in it. That was natural for him, because he had been 
brought up in Antioch where Jewish influence was 
strong. Athanasius was a young man of deep feeling 



44 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

and great determination. He was born and always 
lived in Alexandria, under the influence of the Greek 
school of Christianity which taught that God was 
everywhere, and especially in the hearts of men. He 
said that Jesus Christ was of the " vejy substance of 
God. God of God, Light of Light, very God of very 
God." 

Athanasius won and a creed was formulated which 
later was enlarged into the Nicene Creed which is in 
the Prayer Book. Athanasius had to suffer for his 
victory later, for the idea voiced by Arius had many 
followers in the East who persecuted Athanasius. He 
was obhged to flee to Rome. But he held to his truth 
and to-day his memory is honored as a man who 
would stand firmly for what he believed to be true. 

During the next three hundred years five more 
councils were held. In them many bitter discussions 
took place and the result of them was division rather 
than union. This division was increased when Con- 
stantine moved the capital from Rome to Constanti- 
nople. This was the first step in dividing Christendom 
into the East and the West. With the Emperor's re- 
moval from Rome the Bishop of Rome became the 
first citizen, exercising temporal supremacy as well as 
spiritual. As time went on both people, and churches, 
began to appeal to him as a judge, going to Rome to 



1 



THE BEGINNING 45 

the bishop, because Rome was the old imperial city. 
This displeased the Bishop of Constantinople very 
much, he felt that he, as the bishop of the capital city, 
should be the source of appeal. The whole subject 
was again and again introduced into the councils with 
no good result, for the harder the issue was fought, the 
more clearly it was seen that the East must divide from 
the West, and there must eventually be a Greek Church 
and a Roman Church. 

As we look back on those days we can see a greater 
reason for the division than simply the ambition of 
two rival bishops. We can see that the separation was 
the first great step in an onward development, and the 
history of Christianity was more glorious because the 
West was delivered from the East, for that part of the 
world was going backward, sinking into a sleep from 
which, even to-day, it has not awakened. The sepa- 
ration was finally due to one man who became in reality 
the first Pope of the Roman Church. 

13. Leo First. Bishop of Rome from 440-461. 
The Barbarian Invasions. 

Leo I became Bishop of Rome when conditions 
were favorable to the successful carrying out of his 
ambition. In Gaul a kingdom was in formation that 
was destined to control the Roman Empire and was 
now hastening its decay. Pressing on the northern 



46 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

boundary lines were fierce barbarian tribes who looked 
across the Danube with envious eyes. Within the 
empire was undermined, the citizen as a soldier had 
ceased to be, and whole tribes of barbarians were hired 
and placed in the army. The Christian Church was 
the only strong institution. She alone had power over 
the lives of men. The time was ripe for a strong 
minded, energetic man to make the office of Bishop of 
Rome the controlling power of the world. Leo was 
that man. He took up the sceptre that the Roman 
Emperor was allowing to fall. 

Born of humble parentage in an obscure town of 
Italy, he was only a deacon on a mission in Gaul, 
when the clergy and people of Rome elected him 
bishop or pope as he was now frequently called. 
Pope means father and is the title once given to all 
priests and is even to-day in the Greek Church. 
Amid great enthusiasm they brought Leo back to 
Rome and ordained him priest and bishop. What the 
churches had conceded to the Bishop of Rome, Leo 
immediately demanded as his right. Leo determined 
to be pope in fact as well as in name. 

Soon after Leo was made bishop, he had trouble 
with one of the bishops of Gaul and because of this 
he secured a law from the Emperor, the latter part of 
which ran as follows : " We decree, by a perpetual 



THE BEGINNING 47 

sanction, that nothing shall be attempted against 
ancient custom by the bishops of Gaul, or other 
provinces, without the authority of the Venerable 
Pope of the Eternal City ; but whatever the authority 
of the ApostoHc Chair ordains shall be law to them, 
so that, if any bishop when commanded shall omit to 
come to the court of the Roman Bishop, he shall be 
compelled to come by the governor of the province." 

Much of Leo's success came from his charming 
personaHty. When the fierce Attila with his bar- 
barian Huns was marching towards Rome, it was the 
Bishop Leo who at the request of the Emperor and 
Senate betook himself to the court of the Hunnish 
King and induced him to make peace and withdraw 
beyond the Danube. Later in 456 when the Huns 
were again before the city, and no terms were accepta- 
ble, it was Leo who handed the keys of the city to 
the Vandal King and persuaded him to respect church 
property and church officials > and prevent as far as 
possible murder and fire. For fourteen days the great 
city was plundered, its riches and its people carried 
away. Leo is to be remembered as the first Pope and 
the founder of the papal monarchy. As we watch the 
developments of the papacy in the succeeding pages 
we must not condemn it too harshly. It was wrong, 
Jesus Christ did not teach that any man should exer- - 



4^ THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

cise authority over others. He said (Matt. 20: 25), 
" The princes of this world exercise dominion and 
authority but it shall not be so among you," but we 
should think of it as one of God's methods of pre- 
serving Christianity during the extension of civilization 
over the northern part of Europe, and the remodeling 
of civilization in the southern part. 

14. Rise of Monasticism and Augustine. 

While so much stress was being placed on organiza- 
tion and the bishops were quarreling for power, we 
see that the Church in its worldiness was very far 
from representing Christianity, as Jesus Christ had 
given it to the world. The Church in its worldly life 
had gone to an extreme. But there was another ex- 
treme that entered Christianity about the same time. 
In the days of persecution men and women had fled 
from the world to escape death ; now men who felt 
that the worldly life of the Church was wrong, began 
to live away from the world, hoping in the solitude of 
a cave or desert to follow the Christian life and gain 
heaven. 

One of these men was St. Anthony. When a 
young man, Anthony heard the Gospel story of the 
rich young man who was told by Christ to sell all that 
he had and give to the poor. This story made him 
think. He was rich and yet he wanted to be a true 



THE BEGINNING 49 

follower of Christ. He thought about the matter so 
much that he finally believed demons were around 
him tempting him. So he sold all his property, 
divided the money among the poor and went into a 
desert, determined to dedicate his life to God and 
battle with the demons that tempted and terrified him. 
For a long time he lived in the hollow of a tomb, then 
in a deserted fort, finally on a deserted mountainside, 
sustained by dates and water. Other men followed 
him, seeking his spiritual guidance and living in his 
neighborhood, while people of all ranks visited him, 
seeking advice and council. One day Athanasius, 
when he was being persecuted came to him and re- 
mained with him some time. Athanasius afterwards 
wrote his life. In the year 356 Anthony died. 

These herijiits were soon called monks, and their 
settlement in villages gave rise to a kind of community 
life which later led to the monastery. This was a 
large building or series of buildings where the monks 
lived and worked and prayed. There was a chapel 
with its altar and choir, a dormitory with little cells 
containing a hard bed and a crucifix, and a refectory 
with a long table and pulpit from which one of the 
monks read a sermon while the others ate. 

Here were two kinds of Christians. One was repre- 
sented by the Pope who said, " Follow the instructions 



50 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

of the Church organization and you will be saved." 
The other was represented by the monks who said, , 
" Leave the sinful world and find salvation by prayer- 
ful consecration to God, and fasting and denial." Of 
the two we can but feel to-day that there was more 
Christianity in the latter than in the former. Between 
these two extreme classes were many men who, al- 
though they remained in the Church, were against the 
extreme ideas of organization and authority and in 
sympathy with their brethren who had abandoned its 
protection. Two names should be remembered, Am- 
brose, Archbishop of Milan, 374-397, and Augustine 
Bishop of Hippo, 396-430. 

Ambrose was the son of a Roman prefect in Gaul. 
He was educated for an official position in the state 
and became Prefect of Liguria. One -day in 347 he 
was fulfilling his office and presiding as the state offi- 
cial at the election of a bishop. Party spirit ran high, 
and there were evidences that there would be a riot in 
the Church. The prefect called the assembly to order 
and made a speech exhorting the people to peace and 
unity. So deeply did he impress the assembly that 
when he concluded somebody cried " Ambrose for 
Bishop ! " The cry was caught up by the whole peo- 
ple and Ambrose, the Roman Governor, then thirty- 
four years old, was elected bishop against his will. 



THE BEGINNING $1 

Milan was the residence of the western emperor and 
the office of bishop was very important. Ambrose 
immediately set about preparing himself for his 
office; he studied theology and administration diH- 
gently, and soon became a great preacher. By his 
strong practical sense, stateman's experience and lofty 
character, he won great influence over the Emperor's 
court and over the people. He was a very spiritual 
man and favored monasticism and sought to bring about 
in his clergy more of the Christian spirit and Christian 
living than was found in the hermits and monks. He 
treated high and low alike, and even the Emperor found 
that he must obey Ambrose. Once when the Emperor 
had committed a terrible crime, commanding one 
thousand men to be killed by his soldiers, Ambrose 
wrote to him, refusing him admittance to the Church 
until he gave proofs of repentance. One day the 
Emperor tried to enter the Church, but Ambrose 
stopped him in the porch and asked him to withdraw. 
The Emperor spoke of his contrition but Ambrose 
said that the crime was public, and he must give public 
evidence of his repentance. The Emperor submitted ; 
laying aside all his imperial robes, he went into seclu- 
sion for eight months. This shows how bold and 
brave Ambrose was, but it also shows that the Church 
was stronger than the state, and could dictate to it. 



52 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

The other man who took a middle position between 
the monastery and the Church was Augustine, Bishop 
of Hippo from 396-430. Augustine was born in 
Carthage in 354, son of Patricus and Monica. His 
father was a pagan, his mother was a Christian, and a 
woman of great tenderness and piety. Augustine wrote 
a book called " Confessions " in which he told all about 
his life, so we know more about him than any other 
man of this period. When he was young he was very 
wild and dissolute, but there were present in him 
wonderful talents and great ambition for all kinds of 
knowledge. He became a rhetorician, an orator. All 
this time his mother was very anxious for her son's 
spiritual welfare ; continually she prayed for him and 
from place to place she followed him, pleading with him 
to become a Christian. When Augustine was twenty- 
eight he left Carthage and went to Rome and from 
Rome to Milan. There he met and heard Ambrose 
preach. Inwardly he was impressed. This was the 
beginning of his awakening. He commenced to read 
Paul's epistles and one day, as he was struggling with 
temptation and feeling particularly depressed, his eye 
fell on that passage which reads " Not in rioting and 
drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not 
in strife and envying ; but put ye on the Lord Jesus 
Christ and make no provision for the flesh in sin." 



THE BEGINNING 53 

Augustine says in his confession, " No further would I 
read ; nor needed I ; for instantly at the end of the 
sentence, by a light as it were of serenity, infused into 
my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away." 
On Easter day, 387 a. d., Augustine was baptized. 
That inward struggle made him appreciate the inner 
struggle of the monastic life so that after his conver- 
sion he retired to a monastery, but was called from 
that to become Bishop of Hippo. Hippo was a town 
west of Carthage, where the town of Bona is now. 
As Bishop, Augustine became a great preacher and 
writer. As he had drank deeply of the cup of sin, so 
he convinced people of sin. But he did not leave 
them discouraged, but told them that through Jesus 
Christ and baptism and communion in the Church 
they could be saved. All his life he tried to bring 
more of the monastic spirit into the Church, and by 
his writings he made his ideas of God and Christ and 
the Church, the ideas of most Christian people up to 
the Protestant Reformation. He was a good man, 
selling all his worldly possessions and giving to the 
poor. He died when he was seventy-five in the year 
430. 

Amid all the dark and bright days of this period 
there was one true and central thought that held 
Christendom together. In monasticism, in the 



54 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Church with its elaborate organization, in men Hke 
Ambrose and Augustine there was always present the 
conviction that God had once visited this world in 
human form, that divine love had been manifested in 
the sacrifice on Calvary. 

15. Missionary Activity. 

Missionary work is the foundation of the growth of 
Christianity. All through these years men had been 
carrying the gospel in all directions. There are a few 
men whose names we should remember. Some who 
lived later than this period, are noticed here for con- 
venience. 

Ulfila, born about 311, apostle to the Goths. 

It is said that he was brought to Constantinople as 
a hostage for the good conduct of his people. Here 
he was converted to Christianity and became a 
" lector " /. e.y one who reads the Bible to the congre- 
gation. In 341 he was consecrated bishop of the 
" Christians in Gothia." For seven years he worked 
as pastor and preacher among his people across the 
Danube. He did not care for the disputes of his 
brethren in Rome, he cared more for right living, and 
those who followed him lived very beautiful Christian 
lives. Ulfila made the first translation of the Bible into 
the Gothic language, it was the corner-stone of Teutonic 
literature. He died in 381 in Constantinople. 



THE BEGINNING 55 

Augustine, Apostle to England. 

In 596, Gregory, Pope of Rome, sent Augustine and 
forty monks to the British Isle. The Pope's attention 
had been attracted by some ca-ptured prisoners who 
had been brought from this island. They were so 
beautiful in form and feature that he longed to make 
their people Christians. When Augustine landed he 
met Ethelbert, King of the Jutes, and made many 
converts. He baptized Ethelbert a year later. This 
was not the first Christian community in England. In 
the records of the early councils we find the names of 
British bishops. Thus we beHeve that Christianity 
was first introduced into England as it was elsewhere, 
by Roman soldiers and tradesfolk. Thus there came 
to be two Christian churches in Great Britain : an old 
British church with customs of its own, and the 
Church estabHshed by Augustine the monk. Augus- 
tine tried to unite these two communities, but the 
ancient Church in Wales remained independent of the 
Roman Church. Augustine was consecrated bishop 
and later archbishop. He was the first Archbishop 
of Canterbury. He died in 605. 

Boniface, Apostle to the Germans. 

Of a still later date, 680, was Boniface, who was 
born in England. He early became a monk, and 
after giving evidence of great ability, gave up a 



56 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

career in his own country and made a pilgrimage to 
Rome. Here the Pope appointed him apostle to the 
Germans. As a preacher and organizer he holds a 
high position in the Church, uniting the various 
Christian communities of Germany and instituting 
many new ones. On Whitsunday, 755, he sent word 
for a large number of converts to meet him to receive 
confirmation. During the service a mob of heathens 
fell upon him and slew him along with his people, 
whom he forbade to make any resistance. 

The story of Christian missionary work is long and 
interesting, filled with men and women who became 
martyrs and heroes in order that others might be 
helped and saved. 



DIVISION TWO 

THE MIDDLE AGES 

i6. Fall of the East. 

When Christianity had conquered the Roman em- 
pire, its task was not yet done. The barbarian hordes 
who had come from the north and touched the totter- 
ing empire causing it to crumble, became the new 
material on which Christianity must work. The early 
Christian days were occupied with the converting of 
the Roman empire, the days of the middle ages were 
occupied with the converting of the new people from 
the north. Christianity built its foundation of material 
taken from the Roman empire, but the structure raised 
on the foundation was built of material taken from 
Gaul, Germany and Britain. 

Before following the success of Christianity in the 
north and west of Europe we turn aside to see its fail- 
ure in the east. From 600 to 750, like a stream of 
fire devouring all life before it, the troops of the Mo- 
hammedan conquerors poured forth from Arabia over 
Asia and Africa. To those whom they conquered 
they offered their religion, tribute, or the sword. Per- 

57 



58 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

sia, Palestine, Syria, Africa and Spain succumbed. In 
Jerusalem, on the site of Solomon's Temple, a mosque 
was built. For seven years Constantinople was threat- 
ened. The West trembled, for fear that Christianity 
would be destroyed, the Koran substituted for the 
Bible, the mosque for the church. In 732 an army 
began to march into Gaul from Spain. They were 
met by a Christian army on the plains between Tours 
and Poitiers and driven back. The West was saved to 
Christianity. But the Eastern Church and the Eastern 
Empire were enclosed and fettered by a people who 
half tolerated Christianity, but who could not be con- 
verted. Chilled and benumbed the Eastern Church 
became stagnant, and even to-day we see the effects of 
this terrible conquest in the Russian and Greek 
Churches. 

17. Beginning of the West. 

In the West order came slowly out of chaos. The 
conquering barbarians from the North were not like 
the Mohammedans of the East. The barbarians came 
for wealth, but they came with a longing to build an 
empire like the Roman Empire which they had over- 
thrown. The vastness of its organization awed them ; 
they became envious of its culture, they imitated its 
manners. But after the empire had crumbled, a work- 
ing model remained in the church. Thus they came, 



THE MIDDLE AGES 59 

respecting Christianity the spiritual force in the 
church, and longing to build an empire according to 
the model of the church organization. They brought 
with them willingness to adopt new ideas, great per- 
sonal bravery, and the desire to better life. 

The one thing, that stood in the w^ay of their build- 
ing an empire, was their lack of union. Each tribe 
had its chief and federation was impossible. The first 
step towards unification was taken by Clovis, a Prank- 
ish chief. The Franks occupied what to-day is the 
western part of Germany. Starting with a few thou- 
sand warriors, he soon conquered all of Gaul, the heart 
of the Western Empire. In 496 Clovis embraced 
Christianity. Already Clotilde, his wife, had accepted 
Christianity, and many times she had urged Clovis to 
abandon his idols. Before one of his battles he vowed 
that if the victory were given him, he would worship 
the God of the Christians. The victory was won, and 
immediately Clovis with three thousand of his nobles, 
was baptized. Some time later, hearing a sermon on 
the crucifixion, Clovis exclaimed, that if he and his 
faithful Franks had been there, vengeance would have 
been taken on the Jews. These incidents give a good 
idea of the character of the people who were to rebuild 
society. 

In this period of war and struggle, Christianity made 



60 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

its way by the voices of its clergy being heard in fear- 
less rebuke and tender consolation. They came for- 
ward in the affairs of town and city, they were ambas- 
sadors and peace-makers, intercessors for the suffering, 
and courageous protectors of the injured. Without 
force Christians met these barbarians and subdued 
them by righteousness, and softened and restrained 
them by the lesson of the cross. 

i8. Two Centres of the Middle Ages. 

There were two centres around which the events of 
the Middle Ages revolved. They were the Church 
and the empire, the ecclesiastical and political gov- 
ernments. In history it has been proved that govern- 
ment is necessary. Mankind does not develop when 
he leads a free life like a savage, he develops w^hen he 
places himself in relation to other men and all submit 
to a guiding head, be it a chief, a king, an emperor or 
a congress. As order began to come out of the chaos 
of the sixth and seventh centuries, the need of govern- 
ment was clearly recognized. But what kind of gov- 
ernment should it be ? Should the Roman Empire be 
revived and the Emperor placed at the head, or should 
the church, already so well organized, be given in- 
creased power and the Pope at Rome recognized as 
the head ? 

We are now to w^atch the development of these two 



THE MIDDLE AGES 6 1 

ideas, and their conflict. Notice how wonderfully 
Christianity is preserved through these dark times. 

19. Rise of Papacy. Gregory the Great, 590-604. 

It was natural that the Pope at Rome should gain 
power first. In the confusion that prevailed the Church 
had all that there was of organization; this caused 
men who longed for union and organization to turn to 
it. We must remember that the popes of this period 
did not grasp power, or strive to acquire it ; they 
simply stood still and received that honor and power 
which came to them as the wilHng offering of the 
people. 

In the fall of the empire, in the radical changes 
wrought by the acceptance of a new religion, God 
seemed very far away from the world, and the need 
was felt for power that should rule the world for God. 
Augustine's idea of the Church was adopted and the 
Church was viewed as a refuge, — an ark of deliver- 
ance, — from the dark and evil world. As Christianity 
progressed and more people were converted, they be- 
gan to feel the advantage of a central guiding power. 
Gradually the people were brought under the control 
of the clergy, the clergy under the bishop and the 
bishop under the pope, the earthly head of the 
Church ; thus was the empire becoming unified by 
one common faith and hope and government. 



62 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

The authority of the Papacy never looked as ac- 
ceptable to men as it did in the person of Gregory the 
Great. Born of an ancient and respected Roman 
family, Gregory received all that the culture and edu- 
cation of his time had to give. At an early age he 
filled two important official positions at Rome and 
Constantinople. Early he was attracted to the mo- 
nastic life and from his wealth founded a monastery in 
Rome. Later he decided, like many others of his 
time, to leave the world and enter the monastery he 
had established. Lavishing on the poor all his costly 
robes, his silk, his jewels and his furniture, he became 
a monk. It was as abbot of a monastery that he saw 
the beautiful Saxon youths in the slave market at 
Rome and thereupon resolved to carry Christianity to 
Britain. This he was not allowed to do in person, for 
when he started, the Romans called so loudly for his 
return that he was obliged to abandon the venture, 
but soon after, when he was elected to the Bishopric 
of Rome, he sent Augustine and forty monks, as 
we have seen, to the British Isle. Thus began one of 
the greatest careers in history, 

Gregory found the Roman Church rich in lands and 
estates, given to it since the time of Constantine. In 
Italy, Sicily and Corsica, in Illyria, Dalmatia, and 
Gaul, even in Africa and Asia were possessions that 



THE MIDDLE AGES 63 

meant great revenue. To these estates Gregory gave 
much attention, until he became master of a tre- 
mendous income. With this he made himself the 
fostering lather of all Romans, he redeemed captives, 
and assisted the oppressed. These acts gave him great 
power and brought him and his office into greater 
prominence. Conscious of his power and greatness, 
he was not obliged to magnify his office ; it is said 
he refused to accept the title '' The Bishop of Bishops," 
a title frequently given to bishops of Rome, but pre- 
ferred to call himself " The Servant of the Servants 
of God." 

Personally, Gregory raised an army and defended 
Rome against the invading Lombards and concluded 
a treaty with them. By whatever powers were at his 
command he enlarged the respect for the Roman 
Bishop, until it became a natural course for men to 
appeal to Rome for help and decision in disputes 
among both bishop and state officials. He made him- 
self world-known by sending monks as missionaries 
to Gaul, Spain, Germany and England, and every- 
where they carried the Gregorian Liturgy, a service- 
book written by Gregory in Latin, which is the stand- 
ard of the Roman Church to-day. In such trouble- 
some times as these days were, this great Christian 
spirit, with all these practical methods of unification, 



64 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

could but be hailed with delight. Backed by wealth 
and personal attractiveness, and Christian deeds, 
Gregory w^on all to him ; once again all roads led to 
Rome. We should remember Gregory as a bright 
light in a dark period of history. 

20. Rise of the Empire. Charlemagne (Charles 
the Great), 768-814. 

It seems as if God planned that there should be 
two rulers of the Middle Ages so that when one was 
bad the other would be good and thus Christianity be 
preserved. 

We have seen how wealth and power and honor 
came naturally to the Bishop of Rome. Gregory 
used these nobly because he was a true Christian 
Bishop, but his successors could not withstand the 
temptation which their position presented to them. 
From the Pope down to the clergy, worldliness took 
possession of the Church. Finally so little was the 
Church respected that Charles Martel, after the battle 
at Poitiers, seized Church property and rewarded his 
soldiers with archbishoprics. 

The result of such events was a great decrease of the 
Pope's power and of the people's respect for the Church. 

But as the power of the Church decreased, the 
political power increased. The kingdom founded by 
the Frankish chief Clovis became complete in Charles 



THE MIDDLE AGES 65 

the Great, King of the Franks from 768 and Em- 
peror of the Romans from 800 to 814. 

Charles was born in 742. He received the educa- 
tion natural for the son of a great chieftain, gaining 
much instruction in the methods of warfare and the 
chase, and little in books. It is said that not until 
late in life did he know how to write. At twenty-six 
years of age he became king of the Franks. His love 
of warfare caused him to begin immediately a course 
of conquest. With all the rough ways of his German 
ancestors, he had tremendous vigor ; he was in action, 
wise, inspiring and tactful. In a few years he had 
made fifty-three expeditions, and brought the whole 
of Central Europe under his power. What Gregory 
had done by kindness and wisdom Charles did by 
force of arms. When the union that centred around 
Gregory was almost lost, another union of people was 
brought about by Charles. 

In Rome in the great Church of St. Peter's on 
Christmas day 800, Leo III, the Bishop of Rome^ 
placed a golden crown on Charles's head and the peo- 
ple saluted him as Roman Emperor. This made the 
German people very happy, for what they had desired, 
now seemed attained. They had conquered and re- 
built the empire they respected, and made one of 
their own number Emperor. 



66 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

And where was the value of all this to Christianity ? 
In this : that Charles's reign was not only glorious but 
in the main, righteous. He laid the foundation of the 
educational movements of the Middle Ages. In his 
own palace at Achen (Aix) he collected scholars from all 
parts of the world. He founded schools not only in his 
palace, but for the children of his servants and officers. 

He became Pope as well as Emperor, He looked 
upon the Bishop of Rome as the first bishop, a kind 
of president bishop, but he never allowed his claims as 
superior Pope. His policy was to reform the Church 
and to unify it around Rome as its natural centre, yet 
all the time keeping it and the Pope subject to himself. 
He claimed the right to administer all the Church prop- 
erty as belonging to the state. He exhorted the Pope 
and the clergy to lead good and honorable lives. He 
improved the life of the monasteries by compelling 
stricter discipline. He insisted that the clergy preach 
more sermons, not in the Latin language, but in the 
language of the people, and under penalty of whip- 
ping, compelled the laity to know the Lord's Prayer 
and the Creed. He enacted a law against labor on 
Sundays, and in his reign, time was reckoned from the 
Christian era, each year opening at Christmas. January 
first did not begin the year until the sixteenth century. 

Much of Charles's power was due to his personality. 



THE MIDDLE AGES 6/ 

He was seven feet in height, and of noble presence. 
His eyes were large and animated, and his voice clear, 
but not as strong as his frame would have led one to 
expect. His bearing was manly and dignified. He 
was exceedingly fond of riding, hunting, and of 
swimming. Ehinhard, his friend and biographer, says 
of him, " In all his undertakings and enterprises, there 
was nothing he shrank from because of the toil, and 
nothing that he feared because of the danger." He 
died, at the age of seventy, on January 28, 814. He 
had built at Aix la Chapelle a stately church, the 
columns and marbles of which were brought from 
Ravenna and Rome. Beneath its floor, under the 
dome, was his tomb. There he was placed in a sitting 
posture, in his royal robes, with the crown on his 
head, and his horn, sword, and book of the Gospels on 
his knee. In this posture his majestic figure was 
found when his tomb was opened by Otto III, near 
the end of the tenth century. The marble chair in 
which the dead monarch sat is still in the cathedral at 
Aix : the other relics are at Vienna. The splendor 
of Charlemagne's reign made it a favorite theme of 
romance among the poets of Italy, and a mass of 
poetic legends gathered about it. 

21. Development of Monasticism. 

Before we can understand the next great character 



6S THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

of the Middle Ages we must turn aside and look at the 
great organization in which Christianity was preserved 
and promoted during the Middle Ages. 

The passion for learning which was started and 
promoted by Charlemagne, became the special func- 
tion of. the monasteries. Literature, art, science, music 
and even politics were the interests of these monkish 
professors. To become an artist or a professional man, 
one was obliged to enter the monastery. Outside 
of the authority of the Pope, and in many cases with- 
out exciting the interest of the Emperor, these mon- 
asteries were filled not with clergymen, but with men 
who sought in a free and independent way the fulfil- 
ment of their ambitions. Far different were the 
lives of these monks from the lives of the early 
hermits and ascetics. No fastings, vigils, long prayers 
and self-tortures were the customs. 

Gradually the seclusion of the cloister disappeared, 
and the halls of the monasteries became places of 
luxury, idleness and sin. This had disastrous effects 
on the life of the time. All around were princes and 
people who feared nothing, not even God. The Pope 
had little or no power. There was a freedom in the 
religious life, with little respect for moral law and 
hardly any conviction of sin. They attended the 
church where each Sunday the Holy Communion 



THE MIDDLE AGES 69 

Service (then called the Mass) was read in Latin. 
After the reign of Charles there was little preaching 
except on great occasions like Saint's Days or the con- 
secration of a church. About 1038, Bishop of Gode- 
hard became famous, because, when he heard of people 
coming together for some great occasion, he would 
hasten thither and there preach the love of God, and 
one's neighbor, Christian faith and conduct, the con- 
fession of sins and the care for souls. So rare was 
this that note is made of it. 

Such a loose religious life could not continue. The 
spirit of the world might hold some monks but it 
could not hold all. Again and again in this history 
we have seen the worldly spirit conquering, only to be 
driven back when it had accomplished what God in- 
tended. So now, having advanced learning, culture 
and art and having failed to keep also true Christianity, 
the time came when worldly monasticism should be 
cast forth and trodden under the foot of men. 

There were some monasteries that desired to keep 
the secluded and holy life. The principal one among 
these was the monastery of Cluny in Burgundy. This 
monastery was different from others in that it was .not 
independent. It was under the direction of the Pope. 
Here three severe vows were required and enforced ; 
(i) chastity, including abstinence from marriage; (2) 



70 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

poverty, the giving up of all personal property, and 
(3) obedience to superiors. We must remember this 
last one, for it made all monks of this order obedient 
to the Pope. These monks sought to check every 
earthly thought. They had long periods of silence in 
which they gained mastery over self, and promoted 
the inner and spiritual life. These were the monks 
who won the people of the Middle Ages. Their 
haggard faces, glowing eyes, mortified bodies and 
rough garments became, in the eyes of the people, the 
ideal of a true Christian. The coarse peasant felt that 
here were men sincerely trying to live the life of the 
Cross, here were Christians who overcame the world. 

Cluny became the centre of a powerful and enthusi- 
astic movement. Monasteries far and wide united 
with Cluny as the mother cloister. All came under 
the superintendence of the Abbot at Cluny, and 
through him, under the Pope. The cloister began to 
rule the [West. Papacy and empire came under its 
dominion because it was the one vital institution which 
had the power to rule. 

22. Papacy in Full Power. Gregory Hildebrand 
(Pope 1073-1085). 

If Charles the Great controlled the Papacy as well 
as the empire and made himself Pope as well as Em- 
peror, the time had now come when the Pope would 



THE MIDDLE AGES 7 1 

be Emperor as well as Pope. The way that led to the 
papal supremacy was prepared in the monastery of 
Cluny and was achieved by Gregory Hildebrand, 
Pope from 1073-1085. Hildebrand was born in Tus- 
cany of a poor but respectable family. From his early 
boyhood he was prepared for the monastic life and as 
a young man entered the Monastery of Cluny. He 
came at a moment when this great monastic move- 
ment had arrived at a wonderful point in its career. 
No longer did these monks seek to subdue the world, 
they sought also supremacy over the world. In obe- 
dience to the Pope they looked upon the Church as 
the possessor of the world, God had endowed her with 
it, and it was her privilege to give to the state such 
temporal power as was wise in her sight, reserving at 
all times the right of criticism and dictation. The 
unseen should control the seen, the infinite control the 
finite. Of this movement Gregory soon became the 
leader. He was called first to become chaplain to the 
Pope, then cardinal-subdeacon, archdeacon, chancellor. 
Thus for years before his elevation to the Papacy, dur- 
ing the pontificate of five popes, Gregory in reality 
stood at the head of the temporal affairs of the 
Papacy. 

As soon as he was seated in the papal chair he be- 
gan to develop a spiritual monarchy. He argued 



72 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

that Christ was King of Christendom, and the Pope 
is Christ's representative on earth, therefore it was his 
right and duty to watch over the conduct of the kings, 
to correct their morals and to depose them if their 
government was unrighteous. These monstrous 
claims were made possible by the condition of the 
Church and of the world. Men were very unhappy 
under the oppression of bad kings and princes, who 
ruled them for their own gain. They on the other 
hand, loved the monks of Cluny, and they looked 
upon the assertions of the Pope-monk with great 
favor. They hailed him as a deliverer sent from 
heaven who would purify the Church and control 
wicked princes. 

Thus when the subjects of Henry IV, King of 
Germany complained of his conduct and tyranny, the 
Pope summoned him to Rome to answer the charges. 
This greatly enraged the king who called a council and, 
as the emperor of old had done, deposed the Pope. 
Gregory replied by excommunicating the king. This 
meant that the Pope commanded Christians to refuse 
to associate wath him ; priests could not give him the 
sacrament, and if he died he would not be buried with 
a rehgious service. These things were considered 
very important in those days, and the Pope had 
obtained so much power that an excommunication 



THE MIDDLE AGES 73 

easily frightened people into submission. Not so with 
Henry. He endeavored to overcome the Pope. To 
his surprise he found people drawing away from him, 
his nobles and soldiers refused to remain with 
him unless he obeyed Gregory. Nearly a year 
passed before Henry was convinced that the Pope had 
more power than himself, and he must obey the Pope 
and go to him. 

The two men met in the winter at the castle of 
Canossa. There in the court-yard, barefooted and in 
coarse garments, Gregory saw Henry stand for three 
days, before he would admit him. Then having 
shown him his authority, he released him from the 
excommunication. It must have been a strange sight. 
Henry was a tall, strong man, while Gregory was small, 
greatly emaciated by fastings and vigils. Truly the 
Church had at last conquered. Her chief officer was 
king as well as pope. 

While such arrogance cannot be commended in one 
who claims to be the representative of Christ, still it 
must be remembered that the state was weak and dis- 
organized, while the Church was strong and united, 
therefore it was natural that the Church centre should 
be in control and should use, in the consciousness of 
its power, methods that were more temporal than 
spiritual. 



74 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Such arrogance as was assumed by Gregory always 
meets its downfall. In 1085 Gregory had lost much 
of his power, for the people found him a cold, 
hard ruler and gladly returned to their princes ; pursued 
by the same Henry he died practically a prisoner in 
Salerno on May 25. 

23. Events During Papal Supremacy. 

( i) The Crusades. — The result of the increased power 
of the Pope was that a mighty religious wave swept over 
the people. Everywhere people were asking, " What 
must I do to be saved ? " One of the favorite answers 
was, '' Make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and kneel at 
the Holy Sepulchre." 

The Holy Land was in the hands of Arabs and 
Turks who did not believe in Christ. These, as the 
number of pilgrims increased, began to be hostile to 
the Christians, not only laughing at them for wor- 
shiping a God who was crucified, but also beating 
and robbing them. As the pilgrims returned they told 
stories of their bad treatment. These stories aroused 
the Church and wars were undertaken to redeem the 
land where Jesus had hved, from the hands of infidels. 
In the great movement of the crusades we see the 
Pope as a great military sovereign. 

The movement began at the Council of Claremont, 
held in 1095. Before this council was held. Pope 



THE MIDDLE AGES 75 

Urban had commissioned Peter the Hermit to stir up 
the people to dehver the Holy Sepulchre. All over 
the country he went with an emaciated countenance 
and flashing eye, his head bare, his feet naked, and 
wearing a coarse garment bound with a girdle of cord, 
telHng his burning tale of the inflictions endured by 
the pilgrims. At the council, Urban himself addressed 
the assembly eloquently and with great passion. He 
called upon every one to deny himself and take up the 
cross. He told them that all their sins would be for- 
given and salvation theirs, if only they would free the 
Holy Land from the hands of infidels. Thousands 
knelt and had the red silk cross fastened on their 
shoulders, signifying that they took up arms for the 
Cross of Christ. They were called crusaders from an 
old French word derived from croix, a cross. 

There were seven crusades lasting from 1096 to 
1300. During this time Jerusalem was taken in 1098 
and held until 11 87. In 1229 it was secured again 
and finally lost in 1244. In 1291 the Christians evac- 
uated Acre, their last possession in the Holy Land. 

One of the foremost leaders in the first Crusade was 
Godfrey of Bouillon. He pawned his estate to the 
Church for money to raise an army to go to Jerusalem 
in fulfilment of a vow. His army was eighty thousand 
foot and ten thousand cavalry. After capturing Antioch, 



76 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

and routing a vast Saracen host, the crusaders arrived 
at Jerusalem, where Godfrey on a Friday, July 15, 1099, 
at three o'clock in the afternoon stood on the wall of 
the Holy City. He tarnished his glory by ordering a 
sacrifice of the infidels, seventy thousand Moslems, 
and burning harmless Jews in their, synagogues. 
After this massacre, the army walked to Mt. Calvary, 
bareheaded and barefooted amidst the loud anthems 
of the clergy ; they kissed the stone which had covered 
the Saviour of the world and wept. A Christian king- 
dom was then founded of which Godfrey was unani- 
mously elected king, but he refused to wear a crown of 
gold, where his Master had worn a crown of thorns, 
and took the title of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. 
During the single year of his rule, he repelled the 
Saracens with great courage and skill. 

He died in 11 00 and was buried in the Holy 
Sepulchre. He was mourned by Mohammedans and 
Christians. His life was one of purity, wisdom and 
piety. 

The results of the Crusades were many. Men 
traveled and all minds broadened. The eastern 
civilization which was more refined, was brought back 
to the west, and commerce was established, bringing 
from the east materials and enriching the west with 
eastern customs. 



THE MIDDLE AGES 7/ 

(2) The Inquisition. — This word stands for some 
very dark deeds done by the Roman Church during 
the supremacy of the Papacy. We see now the 
wicked use of the papal power. 

When the Pope was supreme not every one was 
convinced that he was the representative of Christ. 
Never in all history has there been a moment when 
all men saw in the Papacy the ideal of Christian 
living. When the papal power began to shape its 
course there were men who saw whither it was tend- 
ing and who rebelled against it. All through the 
days of Hildebrand there were many spirits faithful 
to Christ who longed for freedom from a Pope, in 
order that they might worship and live as they de- 
sired. But they were a minority, unable to assert 
themselves, and because of their minority attracted 
little attention. They were termed " heretics," which 
meant that they refused to accept the beliefs of the 
Roman Church, and therefore were condemned by the 
Church as in error. 

As the Crusades progressed, not only did the 
Crusaders go to the Holy Land, but also against the 
section of the country where these so called heretics 
lived. The one we will notice especially is the 
crusade against the Albigenses. They lived in the 
southern part of France, grouped around their central 



yS THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

town called Albi. Here they grew very strong, guided 
by the nobles of the section. They drove out the 
Roman priests, and made over the Churches. They 
established schools and charitable institutions, elected 
their own priests and bishop. Not only did they re- 
sist the Church of Rome, but they called it the 
" Church of the Antichrist," " the synagogue of 
Satan." This was more than the mighty Pope at 
Rome could stand. Was he not ruler of the whole 
world ? " Would he send a crusade against the 
infidels and leave these heretics unmolested ? No, 
for Christ, he would exterminate the heretic dogs." 

A crusade was proclaimed against the Albigenses. 
A large army marched to the South of France. See 
how the crusade was carried on. Beziers was the first 
town attacked. The Albigenses were repulsed, and as 
they retreated the crusaders pressed after them within 
the walls of the town. A general massacre ensued, 
the poor people being killed, burned or sold as slaves 
to the Mohammedans. One of the orders given by a 
crusader, Arnold, Abbot* of a monastery was " Kill 
them all; the Lord knoweth them that are His." 
How strange were the thoughts of men, that they 
could believe that such acts were acceptable to Christ. 
Nor was this the worst. Not only would the Pope 
force himself upon these people, but individually they 



THE MIDDLE AGES 79 

were inquired for and unless they confessed allegiance 
they were tortured. Others were tortured until they 
revealed the hiding-places of their friends. To con- 
fess allegiance to the Pope meant being sent to a 
monastery, to refuse meant being burned at the 
stake. 

We cannot realize the terror of these days. To 
possess a copy of the Old or New Testament was a 
crime. So supreme had the Pope become, that no one 
could think a thought or do an act without it was in 
accordance vv^ith the rules of the Roman Church. 

(3) St. Francis of Assist [i 182-1226) and the 
Mendicant Orders. — Amid all the religious en- 
thusiasm created by the supremacy of the Pope 
it would be strange if there were not many 
noble Christian men who stood forth from those 
days of horror and war, and enriched the world 
by gentle, pure and loving lives. Such was the 
life of Giovanni Bernardone, called by his father 
Francesco and known to the world as St. Francis. 
Born in the family of a rich clothing merchant in the 
town of Assisi, between the Adriatic Sea and the 
Apennine Mountains, here he dwelt during boyhood, 
in love with the beautiful mountains, the clear and 
abundant streams, the fresh air and delightful atmos- 
phere about him. Filled with the prevaihng spirit of 



80 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

chivalry he fought for his native town, was taken 
captive and spent one year in prison. With his re- 
lease came sickness, and deeper thoughts on the value 
of life. A deep religious ambition awoke. He de- 
sired to sell all and give to the poor. 

Such ideas were strongly opposed by the father, a 
cool headed business man. One day the two met be- 
fore the Bishop of Assisi, Francis put aside the cloth- 
ing his father had given him and laying them at his 
father's feet, took refuge behind the folds of the 
Bishop's robe. He had made his decision in favor of 
the Church. He was determined to take nothing with 
him, he had determined to deny himself and take up 
the cross. Truly the spirit of this humble young man 
was the spirit of Christ. It was love that filled his 
soul ; pure love of God and of man. His love did not 
call him to preach, or write or join the great Pope who 
claimed to be the representative of Christ, it called 
him to do what Christ did ; to go among the poor, to 
help them by living with them and loving them. As 
Jesus had "nowhere- to lay his head" so Francis 
wandered about with no regular shelter ; joining him- 
self to beggars, and caring tenderly for the outcasts of 
society — the lepers. A little church outside of 
Assisi was the centre of his religious life. Here he 
returned again and again, here he gathered around 



THE MIDDLE AGES 8 1 

him men and women who thought as he did and who 
desired to Hve with him. Soon a rude monastery of 
cells (which can be seen to-day) was established on the 
hillside above Assisi, and here the few faithful dwelt 
in a Hfe of prayer and humihty. As Christ sent out 
His followers, so Francis sent out his ; two by two to 
preach and help the sick and the poor. He said to 
them : " Go, announcing peace to men, preaching 
penitence for the remission of sins. Be patient in 
tribulations, watchful in prayers, in labors vigorous, 
in addressing others, modest and humble, in manner 
and character grave, in receiving benefits, grateful." 

From this humble beginning came the Franciscan 
Order which had power during the latter part of the 
Middle Ages and which to-day numbers one hundred 
thousand monks. From the beginning, Francis sought 
to raise the laity. He created what was called the 
Third Order for men and women who wished to marry 
and continue their work in the world and yet live a 
holy life. 

St. Francis rebelled all his life against Papal favors, 
he urged his followers not to trouble themselves about 
the Papacy. But this was quite impossible. Such a 
work as St. Francis's must be recognized and was com- 
mended by the Pope. St. Francis, early worn out by 
fasting and overwork, died in 1226, stretched on the 



82 , THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

floor of his beloved Church near Assisi. After his 
death his order grew, accepted property and departed 
widely from Francis's original purpose. 

The Me7idicants. 

To the followers of St. Francis was given the name 
of " Mendicants," (poor men). Another man by the 
name of Dominic organized a similar order, more 
closely connected with the Pope. Thus over the 
world streamed these Mendicant monks preaching in 
the language of the people, becoming their pastors 
and confessors. There were no newspapers in those 
days, and these monks, by travel, by touching every 
interest, political and educational as well as spiritual, 
became of great value to the people. Can you not 
imagine the power of the Papacy ? The preaching of 
these monks was the only force to mold public opin- 
ion, and all of these monks in life and thought were 
under the control of the Pope. 

But a more wonderful change was taking place 
through the preaching of the mendicants. While the 
Pope was gaining power by the monk's preaching, un- 
consciously the middle classes were being educated, 
and education meant the weapon by which the Papal 
supremacy would finally be overthrown. 

Up to this time history has dealt with Princes, nobles 
and especially clergy. Now by the preaching of the 



THE MIDDLE AGES 83 

monks, the middle class was introduced into history. 
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries came a won- 
derful revival of learning. The Universities of Paris, 
Oxford, and Bologna came into existence. At Paris 
in 1200 there were fifteen thousand pupils. Here the 
old Greek philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were 
read. A vision of a new life was opened to men. 
Never before did they reaHze so completely their 
bondage to the authority of one man, — the Pope. 
They discovered within themselves, reason and power 
of thought, and as soon as they turned the light of 
that wonderful power which God has planted in man, 
upon all the institutions of the time, the Papacy, the 
monastery, the mendicants, they saw how these in- 
stead of making noble men and women who loved 
God, and led self-respecting lives, made men and 
women afraid of God and lead cowardly and base lives. 
The time had come when the Papacy must fall. 

24. Abuse of the Papal Power. 

The higher one ascends in the Hfe of the world, the 
greater becomes the responsibilities. If the Popes at 
this time had realized their great power and took it as 
a great responsibility, and tried to guide the people in 
their ambition to receive an education and advance 
with the advancing world, they would have exercised 
their power and enriched life. 



84 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Instead they abused their power. They claimed 
more and more the control of lands and houses, and 
sought more and more to enrich themselves. In 
England, Germany and France, the Papacy claimed 
the ownership of all the land, and gave the use of this 
land to men whom it wished to reward, or whose 
services it wished to command. If any one died while 
visiting the Pope at Rome either on business or 
pleasure, the Pope took all the property and gave it 
to whomsoever he willed, and as the Pope controlled 
the armies, if any one objected to his orders, these were 
enforced by arms. 

You remember that the mendicants were under the 
Pope. This gave them a right to go to any parish, 
preach and perform all the duties of the priest, and 
the priest or bishop of the parish could not prevent. 
This power was used badly for these mendicants de- 
manded fees, thus the people's money was taken from 
them and sent to Rome making their own Church 
very poor and St. Peter's at Rome rich. 

So anxious did the Papacy become for money that 
it used to sell bishoprics and spiritual offices to the 
highest bidders, and those who bought would extort 
money from the tenants of the land that went with 
the office. 

The cHmax came in 1302 when Philip of France 



THE MIDDLE AGES 85 

and Edward of England refused to allow to the Pope 
power to give or sell offices in their domains. Pope 
Boniface VIII boldly declared against these kings, 
claiming that he had absolute right and could even 
create and depose kings. These were the two kings 
who represented the advancing nations of this time. 
Under the influence of education they were realizing 
that the state and the Church should not be subject to 
the Pope. The people of these nations were shocked 
by the pretensions to power made by the Pope, and 
were prepared to aid their sovereigns in resisting any 
claims that were made by the Papacy in their country. 

Just as Pope Boniface was preparing to issue a bull 
against Philip awarding France to Albert I of Germany, 
the French Chancellor surprised the Pope and 
took him prisoner. Although he was set free in a few 
days, the shock was so great that he died of a burning 
fever. Philip immediately took control of the Papacy. 
He gained the election of a Frenchman for Pope, com- 
pelled him to move his residence from Rome to Avig- 
non in France, where the Papacy was under the 
watchful eye and direction of the King. 

The Papacy never recovered from this direct blow. 
It was no use for it to claim power over the men of 
the world, when everybody knew that it was the 
vassal and tool of the French King. There soon 



86 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

arose a party who elected a Pope to live at Rome. 
Then Christendom was divided into two hostile camps. 
The Papacy was at war with itself, each Pope fighting 
the other. This period is know^n in history as the 
Great Schism. 

Soon a third party arose w^ho called a council to 
heal the schism. Here a third Pope Vvas elected. 
Thus in the course of thirty years the institution which 
once had commanded the respect and allegiance of 
all, became the jest of Christendom. 

While all this had been taking place with the 
Papacy, the common people and the state had gathered 
strength, one through the preaching of the Mendicant 
Friars, and the other through the teachings in the 
universities, these forces now came forward and became 
the rulers of the world. 

25. Reforming Forces. 

Changes took place rapidly now. The world, as it 
w^ere, awoke. Every one longed for the new life which 
seemed possible in rehgion and poHtics. The three 
headed schism was healed in this way : The Council 
of Constance was called in 141 4. Representatives 
from all of Western Christendom assembled. The 
Emperor himself took part. This showed the desire of 
all for reform. Thus it came to pass that the as- 
sembly declared : that supreme authority in the 



I 



THE MIDDLE AGES 8/ 

Church belonged not to a Pope but to a general coun- 
cil — the assembly of the representatives of the Church 
was above the Pope. The three Popes were then 
compelled to resign, and a new Pope elected and the 
schism actually healed. This was all that was ac- 
complished. No sooner did the Papacy become 
united again, than it seized the reins and tried to 
assert its old supremacy. But this was not possible, 
for already there had arisen men who were to prepare 
the way for Martin Luther and the final overthrow of 
the power of the Papacy. 

(i) John Wiclif[ij24.-ij8//.). — The beginning of the 
movement of reform is best seen in England and in the 
person of John Wiclif. This is a name we should re- 
member, and a life we should know. This man boldly 
asserted three things: (i) The evils of the papacy. 
(2) The independence of England. (3) The rights of 
common people. 

Born of an old Anglo-Saxon family in Yorkshire, 
he was educated in Oxford where he early distin- 
guished himself. In 1 360 he became warden of Can- 
terbury Hall. Later, expelled from his position 
because he refused privileges to the monks, he left 
Oxford and plunged into the politics of the day. The 
great question then debated was, whether or not Eng- 
land should continue paying an annual tax to the 



88 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Pope. This had been done for one hundred years, 
since the days of King John who had submitted to 
the Pope's dictation. Edward III refused to pay the 
tax, and Wiclif supported him in the refusal. Parlia- 
ment voted that the king had no right to send money 
to Rome without the consent of the nobles, and 
further if the Pope proceeded to measures of force. 
Parliament would support the king. Wiclif was now 
appointed on a commission sent from England to treat 
with the Pope's ambassadors. He stayed about two 
years and came back so disgusted with papal life, as 
he had seen it, that he not only resisted papal claims, 
but denounced the Roman Pope as an adversary of 
Christ. Against the practices of the Ronian Church, 
Wiclif turned the full vigor of his mind and voice. 
By sermons from his Church at Lutterworth and by 
theses, he exposed the degradation of the Papacy and 
the wide chasm between it and Christianity. Many 
flocked to hear him, men associated themselves with 
him, these he trained and sent out to propagate his 
teachings. Like the friars, they went about with bare 
feet, coarse clothing, and deeply impressed the poor 
people. 

Such action brought upon him the open condemna- 
tion of Rome. Summoned by a council held at St. 
Paul's, London, Wiclif was tried but no decision reached. 



THE MIDDLE AGES 89 

Wiclif now turned his attention to the translation 
of the Bible. Up to this time the Bible had been 
written in Latin, and the idea had prevailed that it 
would be showing contempt for the divine word to 
hand it about among the unlearned. Wiclif desired 
his poor priests to instruct from the Bible and as they 
could not read Latin, he translated it for them into 
English. This was the first systematic and complete 
translation of the Bible. Wiclif then claimed what 
was very new : that all men should go to the scripture 
for their knowledge and truths of Christianity, instead 
of to the decrees of any Pope or even a council. 
Soon after this Wiclif fell ill and some friars came to 
his bedside and exhorted him, as he hoped for mercy 
from Christ, to unsay the harsh things he had put forth 
against them. But he replied that he was not sick 
unto death but would live to continue his crusade 
against their hypocrisy. 

In 1 38 1 he was again summoned by the Pope's 
representatives to appear in London and answer for 
his writings. Here he spoke out boldly. A priest or 
Pope, he said, had no exclusive authority " they may 
be legally punished and accused by the laity." 

Great confusion reigned during this inquiry. The 
people who loved Wiclif stood by his side ready to 
support him. So also did some of the nobility. An 



90 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

earthquake broke up this council, and although the 
Pope endeavored to secure Wiclif s condemnation as a 
heretic, he was unsuccessful. Wiclif died in peace at 
Lutterworth in 1 384. He was the morning star of the 
Reformation, for he voiced the thoughts of many 
Englishmen ; " That the Bishop of Rome hath no 
jurisdiction in the realm of England." 

(2) John Huss of Bohemis [ij6g-i^i^). — This is 
the name of another man who prepared the way 
for Luther. At the University of Prague lived John 
Huss, teacher of philosophy and preacher of theol- 
ogy. In his teachings he was most temperate and 
instructive, gaining great influence by his modest 
and meek personality. To this university came stu- 
dents from Oxford bringing Wiclif 's ideas. Bohemia 
was aroused and Huss became the central figure of the 
movement. He preached and wrote against the clergy, 
their sins and love of money. Soon the Pope placed 
Huss under ban ; his residence was closed to the public 
by soldiers who did the Pope's bidding, and Huss was 
given a certain time in which to retract. Huss ap- 
pealed to Christ as the one incorruptible judge, left 
Prague and found a welcome in the castles of his 
friends. From these castles he issued writings con- 
demning the Papacy, and went forth and preached to 
large crowds in the open air. At this time the great 



THE MIDDLE AGES 9 1 

Council of Constance was in session (Page 86), and 
the Emperor invited Huss to attend the council and 
vindicate himself and the honor of Bohemia, and as- 
sured him safety under the protection of Imperial sol- 
diers. Huss accepted, but the Emperor did not keep 
his word. At Constance Huss was imprisoned in a 
dungeon, tried before the council and condemned. 
He was then publicly deposed as a heretic, he had his 
priestly garments torn from him, and his soul given to 
the devil. Like the martyrs of old he commended his 
soul to Jesus Christ and was burned at the stake. 

Not satisfied with this crime, the council dug up 
Wiclif 's body which had been buried thirty-one years 
and burned it with all his writings. The ashes were 
thrown into the Avon. We should remember the 
four lines written by Wordsworth : 

"Avon to the Severn runs, 
The Severn to the sea, 
And Wiclif's dust shall spread abroad 
As wide as waters be." 

These acts caused profound agitation in England and 
Bohemia, and a great reaction against Church author- 
ity. Men in Bohemia sent a vigorous declaration to 
the council, and noblemen formed a league for the 
protection of free preaching on their property, and 
declared in favor of Huss and Wiclif, and that they 



92 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

would only obey orders of the bishop and Pope if 
they were in accord with the scripture. So far did the 
reaction against the Church go that in Bohemia there 
appeared the idea of the early Christian community ; 
there was to be no church, with power and authority, 
but rather a voluntary association of men who be- 
lieved in the Kingdom of God. In England arose 
similar movements called, " Lollardism," " Friends of 
God," " Brothers of the Common Life," all seeking 
spiritual living apart from the organized Church. All 
these movements were needed, for all through this 
period we have seen men with their eyes dazzled by 
the brilliancy of Church ritual and organization, and 
their faces set towards the riches of the world with all 
its pleasures and ambitions. Back of them was the 
Gospel that giveth the only true and lasting life. 

The Middle Ages needed not so much a change of 
organization, as a change in spirit. Pope, bishop, 
priests, kings, princes, all needed a draught from the 
inexhaustible well of the gospel, which the great 
Christian Church always bears within her, and all these 
movements signified the turning of men towards the 
gospel. 



DIVISION THREE 



THE REFORMATION 



26. The New Spirit. 

If we had Hved between 1400 and 1500 we should 
have enjoyed one of the most wonderful periods of 
history. In 1320, gunpowder had been discovered to 
be of use in warfare. Picture if you can what the in- 
vention of the cannon and firelock meant. No longer 
was the man on the horse, who was protected by 
heavy steel armor, a terror to the man who had no 
horse and no armor. The man with a lance on a 
horse was compelled to surrender to the man on the 
ground with a gun. ' This put power into the hands of 
the common people and revolutionized society. 

Of still greater importance was the invention of 
printing in 1438. Up to this time all books had been 
made in the monastery. Sometimes monks spent a 
lifetime copying by hand one book after another. 
This made libraries expensive, and education only 
within reach of the wealthy. With the invention of 
printing, books came within the reach of all. Educa- 

93 



94 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

tion means power and in the end it gives a man 
greater power than the gun. 

In 1492, Columbus, by the discovery of America, 
proved that the world was round and not flat, and that 
there were lands on the earth containing wealth be- 
yond the imagination of man. This compelled men 
to make a decided change in their ideas of life. 

With the radical changes in society created by the 
use of gunpowder, with the increased education of 
men by the invention of printing, with the total 
change of looking at the universe as brought about by 
Columbus and Copernicus, a new age came into being. 
Instead of looking forward to the life to come, they 
looked forward to the improvement of life here. 
Men's minds were filled with new ambitions, new path- 
ways of life lay before the young men ; and the poor 
man, the common man, stood upright to receive what 
the age in all its fruitfulness had to give. 

With their attention on these great and important 
movements men found that they had more enthusiasm 
for life, and felt more manly than they did when they 
thought constantly on Church affairs : ritual, organ- 
ization, and stood in fear of the priest and Pope. 
Thus a new spirit came into existence, a spirit that the 
Papacy could not conquer. 

This spirit was more in Germany than anywhere 



THE REFORMATION 95 

else. There were many reasons for this. Notice the 
following: (i) There was more real piety and desire 
for morality. (2) The Bible was read and preached 
not in the Latin language, but in the Germanic. (3) 
The Pope at Rome was far enough away to make the 
Germans bold in criticising him and his methods. 

27. Reformation in Germany. Martin Liuther, 
1483-1546. 

The spirit within the hearts of men at last came into 
being. 

Germany awoke to the fact that much of its money 
was carried to Rome to support a profligate Papacy. 
The method of securing the money was by the 
system of indulgences. If a man committed a sin he 
could buy an indulgence, which was a roll of paper 
containing the Pope's pardon, and thereby be assured 
of the forgiveness of his sin. 

In 15 16 Pope Leo X needed money to continue 
the construction of St. Peter's which stands to-day in 
Rome, the largest cathedral in Christendom. He 
therefore issued thousands of these indulgences and 
sent monks to Germany to sell them. Among the 
monks was one Tetzel whose district was near Wit- 
tenberg. 

As indulgences had been long in the market and 
cheaply bought, Tetzel was obliged to use means to 



96 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

increase the sale. Daringly he piled lie upon lie, he 
set forth a long hst of evils his commodity would 
cure ; he invented evils and sins, crimes and atrocities 
unthought of ; and when he saw his audience standing 
aghast at each horrible suggestion, he would calmly 
repeat the burden of his song : " Well, all this is ex- 
piated* the moment your money clinks in the Pope's 
chest." 

Luther was then pastor and preacher at Wittenberg. 
Born in the family of a miner, he was one of the com- 
mon people. After some early schooling he entered 
the University of Erfurt to study law. Suddenly he 
disappeared. The question : " How can I find a 
merciful God," and the terrors of a thunder-storm, had 
deeply shocked him, and compelled him to turn 
towards the monastery, with the hope that by becom- 
ing pious and sacrificing his life, he could obtain the 
favor of a merciful God. 

After years of study in the monastery, he went to 
the University of Wittenberg where he became a 
doctor and teacher, and in this position his attention 
was attracted to the sale of indulgences. 

Listen to Luther : 

" It was in the year 15 17 when the profligate monk 
Tetzel, a worthy servant of the Pope and the devil, for 
I am certain that the Pope is the agent of the devil 



THE REFORMATION 97 

on earth — came among us selling indulgences, main- 
taining their efficacy, and impudently practicing on 
the credulity of the people. When I beheld this un- 
holy and detestable traffic taking place in open day, 
and thereby sanctioning the most villainous crimes, I 
could not, though I was but a young doctor of 
divinity, refrain from protesting against it in the 
strongest manner. I resolved to oppose the career of 
this odious monk and to put the people on their guard 
against the revival of this infamous imposition. 

" I cautioned my hearers against the snares which 
were laid for them, showing them that this was a 
scheme altogether opposed to religion, and only in- 
tended as a source of emolument by these unprinci- 
pled men." 

Luther wrote to his bishop, but received no answer. 
Finding all his remonstances disregarded, on the fes- 
tival of All Saint's (November, 15 17) he nailed to the 
door of the Church ninety-five propositions against 
these indulgences, in which he set forth their utter inef- 
ficiency and worthlessness. As a knight by casting 
down his glove called for a tournament, so these theses 
called for debate from scholars. The public mind was 
stirred. All Germany was fired by Luther. Luther 
immediately became " A stanch antagonist of eccle- 
siastical abuses, and a fearless champion of reform." 



98 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

The Pope tried to bring Luther to submission, but 
as one dispute led to another, Luther's views of the 
Papacy became clearer and more decided to himself as 
well as to the world. He disputed the right of the 
Pope to make laws and avowed his sympathy with 
Huss. 

In 1520 the Pope excommunicated him, but he 
burned the bill of excommunication at the gates of 
the town in the presence of students and others. Both 
parties had taken the extreme step. The fight was on. 

Luther's stand served as a rallying point for all men 
who had a grievance against the Pope and clergy. 
Protected by some of the nobility who sympathized 
with him, Luther found himself at the head of a large 
body of reformers. Events moved with great rapidity 
and matters went from bad to worse until the Emperor 
Charles V called a council, the Diet of Worms, in 
hopes to reconcile Luther and the Pope. In the 
centre of Worms to-day stands a monument to 
Luther, commemorating his boldness and dependence 
on God. 

To this Diet Luther was carried, assured of safe 
conduct and protection. He went trusting, but re- 
membering Huss. His writings were laid before him, 
and he was asked to refute. He spent one night in 
thought and prayer. Next morning the miner's son 



THE REFORMATION 99 

stood before all, Emperor, bishops and dignitaries. 
After some discussion he was asked for a direct 
answer. 

" Since your imperial Majesty and your Highnesses 
demand a simple answer, I will give you one, brief 
and simple, but deprived of neither its teeth nor its 
horns. Unless I am convicted of error by the testi- 
mony of Scripture, or by manifest evidence (for I put 
no faith in the mere authority of the Pope, or of coun- 
cils, which have often been mistaken, and which have 
often contradicted one another, recognizing as I do no 
other guide than the Bible, the word of God), I cannot, 
nor will not retract, for we must never act contrary 
to our conscience. 

" Such is my profession of faith, and expect none 
other from me. I have done. God help me. 
Amen!" 

Luther was immediately excommunicated and con- 
demned. Respecting his assurance of safe conduct, 
he was given three weeks to return home. 

As the Diet broke up, Luther was seized by faithful 
friends who carried him to the staunch castle at 
Wartburg, situated in a forest. Here he lived for a 
year disguised in the dress of a squire and known as 
Squire George. Here in the quiet of the forest he 
translated the Bible into German. So well did he 
L.ofO. 



lOO THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Avrite that the Bible became immediately a living book, 
and the foundation of German literature. 

Luther soon found that he had a large number of 
powerful princes Avho followed him. and who looked 
to him for guidance, so he left his safe retreat and 
went back to Wittenberg. Here he addressed the 
men who had the power to maintain any position they 
might take by force of arms, and told them it was 
their right and their duty, founded on the universal 
priesthood of all beliefs, to take in hand the reforma- 
tion of the Church, if the proper organs of the 
Church, the Pope and bishops, refused to do so. 
Immediately the German States represented by these 
nobles, drew up a list of one hundred grievances 
against the See of Rome, and declared that they 
would take means to right these wrongs, if they were 
not changed. 

Luther now had his protests against Rome voiced 
by men who had power. The reformation became 
political. On one side were Catholic Princes who 
looked to the Pope and priesthood for guidance. On 
the other were the Protestant Princes who looked to 
Luther and other theologians for guidance. 

We Avill not trace the conflict between these two 
parties. After years of war and miser>^ the Protes- 
tants were successful. Both the Roman and the 



THE REFORMATION lOI 

Protestant confessions were allowed ; so that in some 
places the power of the Pope and priests was recog- 
nized, in others not. In some churches the altar was 
taken away and fewer forms and a less rigid liturgy 
than the Romans, used. The Mass, or Lord's Supper, 
from being celebrated daily, was celebrated infre- 
quently. The office of bishop was given up and the 
governing of the congregation was placed in the hands 
of the princes or organized bodies called " presbyteries." 
Luther did not live to see these steps taken. Al- 
though he must have seen that they were inevitable. 
On the night of February 17, 1546, he was taken 
seriously ill. He talked a great deal of his death. In 
his sleep he would repeat : " Into Thy hands I com- 
mend my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord 
God of truth ! " 

Suddenly he fell back in a swoon. As he revived, 
one of the doctors standing near said to him, 
" Reverend father, do you die firm in the faith you 
have taught ? " Luther opened his eyes and looked 
fixedly at the doctor and replied, firmly and distinctly, 
" Yes ! " Soon after he grew paler and his breathing 
fainter, until at length he sent forth a deep sigh, and 
the great reformer was dead. 

We must remember Luther as a great Christian 
hero. Living in a time when it was dangerous to be 



102 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

true to the highest, he obeyed the voice of God in his 
heart and with courage and boldness performed a 
gigantic task. Through him God put a new spirit 
into Hfe. When Luther laid his hand on the Bible 
and deferred to it as the only true authority, he gave 
to his day what was most needed. He visibly voiced 
the truth: that no church can be a true church of 
Christ unless it lives and works according to the 
Scripture. 

28. The Reformation in France. John Calvin, 
1509-1564. 

The spirit of revolt against the Papacy was wide- 
spread over Europe. Each nation went about reform- 
ing its religious life, in different ways, but the end 
sought and attained was the same : liberty to read the 
Bible and live as God dictates by man's conscience 
instead of a life of unthinking obedience to the 
Roman Church. 

In France where people were always opposed to 
the Italian Papacy (recall the years of the Papacy at 
Avignon), the Reformation was led by the nobility, and 
did not reach the common people until it crept in 
from Germany. Thereupon there arose two parties of 
Protestants. These became very bitter towards each 
other and went to such extremes that during the night 
of October 13, 1534, the Lutheran party posted up 



THE REFORMATION IO3 

violent placards on the church doors and walls and 
even in the King's bedchamber, attacking the Mass 
and the party of the nobility. This act led to per- 
secution. One hundred Protestants were held, eight- 
een tongues were cut out, some were burned. 

This persecution caused John Calvin to come for- 
ward with his " Institutes of the Christian Religion," 
as a testimony of the belief of the Evangelicals. 
John Calvin was thirty-five years old when Luther 
died. In early youth he exhibited seriousness and 
strictness in his views of morality. He lost his 
mother early and it is said of him that he never played 
as a boy. At twelve he was, at his father's request, 
appointed chaplain or pastor in a French chapel. 
This was one of the evil customs of the time. Bish- 
ops and Popes gave responsible positions to boys in 
order that their relatives might derive the revenue 
therefrom. We read of a cardinal only sixteen years 
old and of an archbishop five years old. Calvin did 
not perform any of the duties in this chapel. He 
continued with his studies and so closely apphed him- 
self that his mates believed that he condemned the 
spirit of fun and play. When he was nineteen he 
studied in the University of Paris and other French 
universities, and there learned about the Lutheran 
Reformation, whose principles he accepted. 



104 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

During the persecutions in France he was obliged 
to flee in order to save his own Hfe. He said, " If 
truth does not deserve to dwell in France ^ neither may 
I dwell there!' He started for Bale, and being obliged 
to pass through Geneva was there detained by Farel, 
the leader of the Protestant Reform. " Calvin en- 
deavored to excuse himself on the plea that he needed 
quiet to pursue his studies, and that his natural shy- 
ness made him useless in active reform. But Farel 
declared to him in the name of God, that if he refused 
his help, when the Church was in such sore need, God 
would curse his studies and his rest." Calvin accord- 
ingly remained and filled the position of teacher of 
theology. 

The people of Geneva at that time were struggling 
against the bishops who were also their civil rulers, 
and had accepted the reformation theology because 
it was opposed to that of their bishops. Having 
overthrown these powers, Calvin assisted in drawing 
up a system of Church government, which was to 
govern the city also. In it there were too many of 
Calvin's religious ideas. All power was given to the 
ministers. There was to be no more dancing, no 
music, cards, holidays and plays. Even the church- 
bells were taken down and made into cannon. The 
people of Geneva found this yoke hard to bear. 



THE REFORMATION IO5 

They were a gay people, fond of songs and dances 
and holidays. They felt that Calvin had gone to an 
extreme that was as hard as obedience to the Roman 
Pope. 

After a few months they drove Calvin out of the 
city and went back to their pleasure with such a zeal 
that the city was endangered, and a party arose who 
desired Calvin's return. A message was sent to the 
princes of Strasburg where Calvin had gone, part of 
which read as follows : " Most worshipful Masters : 
Urge the most illustrious princes of Strasburg that in 
their benevolence they not only restore our brother 
Calvin to us, who is so very necessary to us, and who 
is so anxiously sought after by our people, but that 
they condescend to urge him to come hither as speedily 
as possible." Calvin returned, and with him returned 
also his laws against wickedness. He built a civil 
condition where the laws were religious and the judges 
ministers. Geneva soon became known as a pious 
community where there was no luxury and no crime. 

The value of Calvin is in the fact that he gave a 
new turn to the Reformation. As the movement be- 
came victorious there was a strong tendency to think 
that freedom from the control of the Pope was license 
to do anything or think anything. Calvin stood 
against this and said that God was in heaven, and 



I06 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

must- be obeyed by men. If they would not obey 
willingly then they must be compelled to obey. 

He had no idea of toleration. There was a man by 
the name of Servetus, who was visiting Geneva. This 
man did not agree with Calvin on the Trinity. Calvin 
said he blasphemed God, brought him to trial and had 
him burned at the stake. This was wrong, it was 
exercising Roman power under a Protestant name. 
Luther was not so hard hearted. Calvin is one of the 
** best hated" men in history. Some of the people in 
Geneva called their dogs by his name. He was hated 
by the Roman Church because he was the author of 
the system that opposed the proudest and most in- 
vincible front to Rome. By statesmen, because he 
instituted a Church that acted as a revolutionary force 
in history. By Anglican bishops and divines, be- 
cause he was the father of Puritanism. But the man 
who touched so many men, must have been a man of 
decided power, raised by God to do a certain work. 

29. Reformation in England. 

We come to that part of the Reformation with 
which we as citizens of the United States are more 
directly connected. It was from England that most 
all forms of religious life entered United States. 
England was the last country to fall under Roman 
power in the eleventh century ; and first to escape in 



THE REFORMATION lO/ 

the fourteenth. The reasons for this were (i) its island 
position, it was a long way from Rome and (2) its 
strong nationality, its love for its own land. 

We must glance for a moment backward and see 
the course over which we have come. 

1 . We began in England with Wiclif, " The Morn- 
ing Star of the Reformation." We saw him take a 
bold stand against the Pope asserting that the papal 
tax was not legal and should no longer be paid. 

2. Luther in Germany took the next step when he 
asserted that the Pope's power and the power of the 
council was subordinate to the Scriptures. 

3. Then came Calvin who built up a system of po- 
litical life free from the Pope and priest and based on 
obedience to God. 

These are the fundamentals of the Reformation. 
These effected church life in Germany, France, Eng- 
land, Switzerland, The Netherlands and all reforming 
nations. 

(i) Henry the Eighth. — The central figure in Eng- 
land is King Henry VIII, 1 509-1547. Green thus de- 
scribes him : *' Henry the Eighth had hardly completed 
his eighteenth year when he mounted the throne, but 
the beauty of his person, his vigor and skill in arms, 
seemed matched by a frank and generous temper and 
a nobleness of political aims. Already in stature and 



I08 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

strength a king among his fellows, taller than any, 
bigger than any, a mighty wrestler, a mighty hunter, 
an archer of the best, a knight who rode down rider 
after rider in the tourney, the young monarch com- 
bined with his bodily lordliness, a largeness and versa- 
tility of mind which was to be the special characteristic 
of the age that had begun." 

While the monk Luther was stirring up trouble in 
Germany and making the Pope uneasy, Henry VIII 
brought him a problem that did not tend to increase 
his comfort. Henry had married his deceased brother's 
widow ; and as that was against the laws of the Church 
(Leviticus 20; 21), he obtained permission to do it from 
the Pope. There was considerable difference in the 
ages of the two, and Henry soon became tired of her 
and desired Anne Boleyn, a lady of the court. Henry 
argued that what the Pope had done, he could undo, 
so he applied to him for a divorce from his first wife. 

Henry had every reason to expect the divorce. 
He had supported the Pope against Luther and had 
stood so strongly against some of the reforming tend- 
encies, that the Pope had given him the title, " De- 
fender of the Faith." While the Pope and Henry were 
on good terms, there were many political reasons why 
the Pope could not grant the divorce. The principal 
reason w^as : the Pope was very much under the power 



THE REFORMATION ICQ 

of the Emperor Charles V who was a nephew of 
Henry's wife and who opposed the divorce for the 
sake of his aunt. The case dragged on for six years, 
until Henry stood ready to side with any one who was 
against the Pope. Thomas Cranmer now appeared. 
He was a professor at Oxford, and advised the King to 
appeal his case to the Universities of Christendom that 
they could settle the question better than the Pope. 

Henry gained an opinion in favor of divorce from 
Oxford and Cambridge. He elevated Cranmer to be 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cranmer, in opposition 
to the opinion of the Pope, officially declared the mar- 
riage null and void. This meant the setting aside of 
the Pope's supremacy. 

The Reformation began in earnest, for the King and 
Parliament were united against the Pope, and together 
they put forward a succession of measures, whereby 
the English Church was to be torn away from the 
Romish. 

1. The *^ Bishop of Rome " (note the term) was de- 
nied all jurisdiction in England. 

2. No longer were clergymen to appeal to Rome, 
but to the King. 

3. Bishops should renounce the Pope and obey the 
King. 

Once again England was free from the Papal yoke. 



no THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

God overrules evil by good. Henry's divorce was 
wrong, but it aroused him to assert the old English 
independence from the Pope which existed before King 
John's time. 

(2) The Bible and Prayer Book. — With the abolish- 
ment of Roman supremacy came great changes in the 
English Church. First of all came the translation of 
the Bible into English. Wiclif 's Bible had been dis- 
tributed only in manuscript copies, and its phrases in 
many ways were old and not acceptable to the clergy 
of the time of Henry the Eighth. The doctrinal con- 
troversies which arose, made frequent appeal to the 
Bible necessary and thereby a demand for a new 
edition of an English Bible was created. Two unsuc- 
cessful private attempts were made by Tyndale 1526 
and Coverdale 1535, to translate the Bible. Each was 
so filled with inaccuracies that universal acceptance 
was impossible. In 1539 after five years of joint labor 
the bishops issued what is known as The Great Bible. 
Then the following proclamation was issued : Every 
parish priest is ordered to " provide one book of the 
whole Bible of the largest volume, in English, and 
have the same set up in some convenient place within 
the Church whereat the parishioners may most com- 
modiously resort to the same and read it," and the 
clergy were further instructed : " to discourage no one 



THE REFORMATION 1 1 I 

privily or openly from reading the Bible, but to ex- 
pressly provoke, stir, and exhort every person to read 
the same as that which is the very lively word of 
God." 

In those days printing was very expensive and 
especial care was taken for preserving the copies. 
They were bound in wood with heavy iron clasps and 
were chained to the reading desk or to the wall of the 
church. Here the people would gather at all hours of 
the day. Not all could read, but all could listen while 
others read. 

In 1543 the systematic reading of the Scripture in 
the Churches was ordered. Sundays and holy days 
lessons from the Old and New Testaments were read. 
How different was the Christian spirit now, from the 
Papal spirit which kept the Bible from the people. 

There was a great change in the manner of worship. 
The service was no longer said or sung in Latin, but 
in English. In 1549 the first English prayer book 
was put forth. This was made from five different 
books used in the worship of the Church. 

(i) Primers. These were little books of prayers for 
individual use. 

(2) The Breviary, which contained the ordinary 
daily services in Latin. 

(3) The Missal, which contained the Mass in Latin. 



112 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

(4) The Pontifical which contained' the sendees for 
ordaining ministers and consecrating bishops. 

(5) The Manual containing occasional offices used 
by the priest. 

In the new Prayer Book they no longer used the word 
" Mass," but " The Supper of the Lord and the Holy 
Communion, commonly called the Mass." Every 
prayer to the Virgin Mary was left out and people in- 
structed to pray to God. When formerly only the 
bread of the Lord's Supper had been given to the peo- 
ple, now they gave both bread and wine. In the ma- 
king of the Prayer Book it was not the intention of 
the compiler to get as far away from Roman customs 
as possible. In matters of doctrine they were guided 
by the Bible and the belief of the Church during the 
first five centuries, that is, before Rome had begun to 
exercise dictatorial power. They sought to retrace 
the steps of the Church back to simpler and more 
Apostolic methods, taking into consideration the fact 
that the Church had grown and in many things could 
not follow the Apostohc model. In matters of ritual 
they sought to retain those things that time and ex- 
perience had proved to be helpful in a service of 
worship. 

(3) Dissolution of the Monasteries. — The Reforma- 
tion in England effected the life of the monks tremen- 



THE REFORMATION II3 

dously. Up to this time there had been many monas- 
teries scattered over England, holding rich lands and de- 
riving large revenues. In all but a few cases these were 
in sympathy with the Pope and opposed the Reforma- 
tion. In a word the monasteries in England had out- 
lived the work which they were created to reform. 
The friar had no religious devotion, no intellectual 
energy, he was a beggar. The monk was a land 
owner, anxious only to enlarge his revenue and live in 
indolence and self-indulgence. They practiced great 
deception on the people. At Boxley in Kent there 
was a famous crucifix, which had long awed the credu- 
lous by bowing its head when any one approached. 
This was taken down and carried to London where 
its springs and manner of working were disclosed to 
the public. 

Such evidence prepared the way for the dissolution 
of the monastery. Over one thousand were broken 
up, their lands given to peers, their money and plate 
sold. Little of the monastic wealth came to the 
bishop or clergy, for Henry used it to gain power to 
further his own purposes of making the king supreme 
in England. In spite of the many wrongs committed, 
much good came from the movement. Some of the 
monastic establishments became cathedrals. West- 
minster Abbey, Cathedrals at Oxford, Chester, and 



114 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

many others are remnants of monastery dissolution. 
By the dissolution of the monasteries, ecclesiastical 
and pious prelates disappeared, mitred abbots who had 
seats in Parliament were forced to give up that privi- 
lege and ever since that time the temporal peers have 
had the majority in the House of Lords. 

(4) Edward VI. — Henry died in 1547. He was 
succeeded by Edward VI, his son. Edward was ten 
years old when he came to the throne. During his 
reign he was under the guidance of nobles who 
favored the Protestant side more than Henry VHL 
Articles in faith were drawn up more Protestant in 
tone than the Prayer Book. Images were removed 
from the churches, priests were permitted to marry. 

Three men were prominent in guiding the reform, 
Archbishop Cranmer, and Bishops Ridley and Latimer. 

(5) Reaction under Mary First. — In 1553 Edward 
was succeeded by Mary I, a loyal Roman Catholic. 
She had but one ambition and that was to bring Eng- 
land back to the Pope. To this end all the Protestant 
statutes were set aside, and the old Papal laws reestab- 
lished. Most terribly she persecuted those who would 
not give their allegiance to Rome. For three years 
the persecution raged. Two hundred and seventy- 
seven were burned at the stake. Ridley and Latimer 
were condemned to die together. Fastened back to 



THE REFORMATION II5 

back to the same stake they met a terrible fate in the 
spirit of the martyrs of old. As the fagots were 
piled on, Latimer said, " Be of good cheer, Master 
Ridley, and play the man ; we shall this day light such 
a candle by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall 
never be put out." Six months later Cranmer was 
burned at the same place after having weakened and 
taken back some of his writings. In the end, how- 
ever, he was true, asserting at the stake with a loud 
voice his belief in all that he had said. Latimer's 
words came true, for those fires burned into the hearts 
of England a horror for the Papacy that time cannot 
erase. 

In 1558 Mary was succeeded by Elizabeth (1558- 
1603). She was hailed with great joy for the people 
knew her to be Protestant at the heart and they were 
tired of persecution and burning. She was a vain 
woman, with great courage and devotion to public 
good. She loved England. All the old Protestant 
ways were replaced, only some of the Roman ritual 
was added, for the queen Hked the beauty of the Roman 
service and disliked the barrenness of the Protestant 
ritual. She had a prayer book pubHshed very much 
like the prayer book of 1549 and reduced the articles 
of religion from forty-two, to thirty-nine. 

(6) Spanish Armada. — During all this time the 



Il6 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Pope was not silent. After having excommunicated 
Henry VIII he placed a ban upon England. As long 
as that ban remained any nation who had the power 
could go in and take possession of England. In the 
middle of Elizabeth's reign the Pope seeing that Eng- 
land was sHpping from him, commissioned the Span- 
iards to execute his ban upon the English. The 
Spaniards had the finest navy in the world while the 
English navy was small and badly equipped. On 
July 19, 1588, the Spanish fleet appeared. Disposed 
in the form of a crescent, the horns of which were 
seven miles asunder, the gilded floating castles of 
Spain, with their goodly standards and martial music, 
moved slowly along the channel with an air of indolent 
pomp. On July 27 they anchored in Calais Road. 
Some of the ships carried a supply of Romish priests 
to be placed in charge of the English parishes. They 
also brought with them implements of the Spanish In- 
quisition for the torture of heretics. 

At midnight on July 28, the English silently towed 
eight small vessels covered with tar and filled with in- 
flammable material towards the Armada. These were 
ignited and allowed to drift into the midst of the 150 
gorgeous vessels. In fear the Spaniards cut the cables 
and put to sea. Within a short time a violent storm 
arose which drove the Spanish vessels north onto the 



THE REFORMATION 11/ 

rocky coasts of Argyllshire and Kerry. Thus ended 
the last attempt ever made by the Pope to enforce the 
English to obedience. To this day Englishmen see 
in that storm the merciful hand of God saving 'the 
Church and the realm. 

30. Counter Reformation. 

As the clock goes because the pendulum swings 
from one extreme to another, as man walks by losing 
and regaining his balance, so history develops. Our 
attention has been fixed on the extreme movement of 
the Protestant reformation. During these years we 
must not think that the Roman Church made no 
efforts to reform. When Luther protested against the 
wickedness of the Church, there were many who 
agreed with him. The question was : just what por- 
tion of the Church life must the reform touch ? There 
arose a party which said, " Let us leave the doctrines 
of Christianity as they are, but let us reform its organ- 
ization and its discipline over clergy and people.'' 
This was a movement that brought forth out of the 
conflict with Protestants the Order of Jesuits and the 
Council of Trent, and estabhshed the modern Roman 
Catholic Church. 

(i) The Order of Jesuits. — We will look first at the 
man who founded the Order, and then at the Order 
itself. 



Il8 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Ignatius Loyola was born in a Spanish castle on the 
Bay of Biscay in 1491. Like all noble youths of 
those days he was trained for war. Tall and hand- 
some, he delighted in gay and splendid attire and 
practiced graceful and continuous movements. 

During a battle he was wounded in both legs. This 
was a great misfortune to one who loved the co*urts 
and the excitement of battle. During his illness he 
showed his great strength of will and ability to endure 
pain by allowing the surgeons to operate upon him 
until he recovered without being a cripple. Ignatius 
was then thirty years old. 

While confined to his bed he read some of the lives 
of the saints. For the first time he read of men who 
did glorious deeds and suffered pain, not to bring 
honor to themselves, but to glorify God. After medi- 
tation he determined to devote himself to this same 
cause. As soon as he recovered he went to a monas- 
tery and hung his sword on a pillar of the altar. Then 
he laid aside all his gay clothing and, clad in beggars' 
rags, returned to a cave. Here he beat and cut his 
body, fasted and prayed for the forgiveness of his past 
sins. After a pilgrimage to Jerusalem he decided to 
study. At Barcelona he took his place among boys 
that he might begin at the beginning. In 1528 he 
went to the University of Paris. Here he met a few 



THE REFORMATION 110 

young men inbued with the same spirit. Together in 
a church they vowed never to marry, never to have 
anything of their own. This was the beginning of 
the great Order of Jesuits. At first Ignatius called it 
" The Company of Jesus " and later he was chosen to 
be its superior. As superior he made them take a 
third vow, that of absolute obedience. Soon the order 
was recognized by the Pope and the members were 
made priests ; then the vow of obedience was given to 
the Pope as well as to the superior. 

Ignatius died July 31, 1556. However much we 
disagree with him and his order, we should remember 
him as a strong, sincere and loyal soldier of Christ 
living up to the highest ideal he knew. When a man 
does that the world respects him. The ideal of his 
order was military obedience in the spiritual life as 
well as in the practical life. The Jesuits gave up all 
relations and friends, they went all over the world as 
missionaries and worked hard in savage and civilized 
lands with no thought of self. Especially in South 
and North America did these men do good work 
among the Indians, teaching them not only religion, 
but trades and farming. 

This order was a great foe to Protestantism, for at 
first the lives of the Jesuit priests were so self-sacrifi- 
cing that men and women were attracted. " By their 



120 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

fruits ye shall know them," and many followed them 
because their holy lives were the fruits of sincere and 
earnest devotion. 

But their idea of obedience was. wrong. They 
wanted men to obey without thinking, and if they did 
not, they were subjected to torture until they died or 
submitted. The spiritual court that tried and tortured 
men into obedience was called the Inquisition and its 
object was to stamp out opposition to the Roman 
Church by force. This was long after Loyola's day. 
Thus while the Jesuits strengthened the Roman 
Church by keeping its doctrines, while they tried to 
reform its manner of life, yet Protestantism was 
stronger because it taught that no man should be 
compelled to obey another man, rather each man 
should love to obey God because God's commands are 
right. 

(2) Council of Trent. — So much statement of 
doctrinal belief on the part of the reformers, so much 
persecution of heretics on the part of the Roman 
Church, compelled the Roman Church to state clearly 
its doctrinal position. In 1545 a great council was 
called at Trent in Austria. Protestants and Romanists 
were alike invited to come. The intention was to 
heal the break and unite the Church. But the Jesuits 
were the strong men of the council and they were un- 



THE REFORMATION 121 

willing to make any compromises. The council lasted 
for nearly twenty years with the result, that the 
Protestants left in disgust and the Jesuits had things 
their own way. What the council said then, the 
Roman Church believes to-day ; absolute obedience 
must be rendered by the individual to the Church ; 
seven sacraments were to be maintained : Baptism, 
Communion, Confession, Penance, Holy Orders, Holy 
Patrimony, Unction, the Virgin Mary was to be wor- 
shiped, saints prayed to and relics revered. 

The river that does not flow becomes stagnant. 
Thus we leave the great Church that had borne the 
banner of Christianity through the terrible days of the 
Middle Ages. It defined its Christianity too nar- 
rowly, it put the emphasis on the method of the 
Christian life, and neglected the spirit within. To-day 
it contains many faithful soldiers who are living up to 
their light, but their light is behind them instead of 
before them. We wait and pray that God may send 
His angel to trouble the water and bring down from 
heaven the spirit of life. 

31. The Protestant Spirit. 

As the events of the days of Luther and Calvin be- 
came more and more distant how did men begin to view 
the Protestant phase of Christianity? The Christians 
of the Middle Ages were very clearly organized, the 



122 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

clergy represented the bishop, the bishop represented 
the Pope, and the Pope represented God, a clear and 
well defined channel by which a god, who dwelt away 
from the world, sent His messages of guidance, and 
power of the forgiveness of sin into the world. 
Against all this the reformers asserted the right of 
each man to listen to his conscience and follow its 
dictates, as the voice of God. The Protestants cast 
down one Pope and made every man a Pope, a priest, 
a king. They elevated the Bible as the supreme 
message to the world. This was the theory, and not 
until these days have we seen the value of the re- 
alization of the theory, for to-day one ideal animates all 
noble men: the increase of man s freedom to think and 
move and enjoy life which is his rightful i^iheritance. 

But freedom does not mean that a man can do just 
as he likes. To follow some of his desires would 
mean that he would come in conflict with, and take 
away the freedom of others. That is what Calvin did. 
He took away the freedom of the people of Geneva. 
He made them serve God whether they wanted to or 
not. Freedom comes when we do the things that 
God commands in our conscience, because they are 
right and therefore we love to do them. Only in 
God's service is there perfect freedom. 

Here is the greatness of life that the Reformation 



THE REFORMATION 123 

Opened to us. No longer do we tremble before God 
and before the work of His hands. We know that 
we are made in His image, and that our mind is given 
to us for development, and the more we grow, and the 
more we study and work the larger are our views of 
life, we come to see God as Father and Creator, Jesus 
Christ His Son as our pattern and Guide and all the 
forces of nature, gravitation, electricity, the wind and 
waves, the land and all that it bears, these become our 
servants with but one purpose for existence, to help us 
to be strong and better men and women, more Hke 
Jesus Christ. 

32. Puritans and Pilgrims. 

We have now to see how this idea of man's freedom 
worked itself out. The effect of the constant reading of 
the Bible was tremendous. Especially among the mid- 
dle and the peasant class was the spirit of freedom em- 
braced. These people were present in large numbers 
in the congregations throughout England and gave 
strength to a great movement known as Puritanism. 
This name was given to men who desired great purity 
in life and religion. They desired to follow Calvin 
rather than Elizabeth's reforming ideas. They dis- 
liked vestments of any form and objected to bishops 
and especially to the idea of the sovereigns having the 
leadership in religious affairs. 



124 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

At first they did not separate from the Church of 
England but went on trying to guide the people ac- 
cording as their conscience led them. But soon the 
state entered into religious conflict. Elizabeth wanted 
one head to the nation, one Church, one form of 
service, one prayer book, one set of articles. She said 
there must be uniformity. In 1563, the thirty-nine 
articles of religion were put forward and every clergy- 
man was obHged to conform to them. Many refused 
and resigned their parishes. Others who objected re- 
mained in hopes that there would be a change, while 
others remained and stirred up strife. 

Thus the Church was torn by dissension. Church- 
men and Puritans agreed in the main points of theology, 
but stood at variance in regard to Christian govern- 
ment and methods of worship. The Puritan move- 
ment gathered strength, its followers were able to as- 
sert themselves by force of arms, and in 1645 their forces 
under Oliver Cromwell, met and defeated the royal 
army at Naseby in Northhampton. Cromwell became 
protector of England and from 1649 to 1660 England 
was under a Puritan government. There are men in 
this period whose relation to Christ was of such a na- 
ture that their names should be remembered. 

(i) Oliver Cromwell [i^gg-16^8), — At an early age, 
after an incomplete education at Cambridge we find 



THE REFORMATION 125 

him succeeding his father as a county squire. Early- 
he associated himself with the Puritan party with 
whom he soon became distinguished for his earnest- 
ness and wisdom. At twenty-nine years of age he 
was elected to Parliament where he soon gained the 
ill-will of the King, by a short blunt speech condemning 
the preaching of the Bishop of Winchester as " flat 
popery." Dispatched to his home, for eleven years 
he worked his estate having little respect for the King 
and condemning his unjust schemes. 

Again elected to Parhament he became a power. 
Sir Philip Warwick says of him : " The gentleman 
was very much hearkened to." As Parliament and 
the King disagreed more and more and the King was 
condemned for his treachery, Cromwell took the lead 
in raising troops to support the Puritan side. In the 
civil war that followed, one victory followed another 
until Cromwell was supreme and the King beheaded. 
With the army at his back, Cromwell exercised great 
power over Parliament whenever it degenerated into a 
body given to useless discussions. (Read Green's 
History of EngHsh People, page 581.) Parliament 
legally elected him protector, he refusing to be 
crowned king. It is to Cromwell that the people of 
England owe their constitutional government. His 
religion was practical. He felt that God had called 



126 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

him to cleanse the political Hfe and give to his nation 
a government that was based on God's will and not 
man's. In his power he proclaimed to the nation that 
the aim was not " to grasp the power ourselves nor to 
keep it in mihtary hands, no, not for a day, but to call 
to the government men of affirmed fidelity and hon- 
esty." And when the ParHament of his choice came 
together he said : *' Convince the nation that as men 
fearing God have fought them out of their bondage 
under the regal power, so men fearing God do now 
rule them in the fear of God ! Own your call, for it is 
of God." 

In great humility before God he held his position 
and never for himself but for God did he work. " I 
have sought the Lord day and night that He would 
rather slay me than put me to this work." The nation 
approved of him and in that approval he saw the sign 
of God's call and he considered it just as divine as the 
right of kings. He was ready to follow God and the 
people. 

" If my calling be from God, and my testimony 
from the people, God and the people shall take it from 
me, else I will not part from it." 

Cromwell ruled with a strong and severe hand, but 
he ruled wisely and as the times demanded. His 
home policy was liberal, while in foreign lands Eng- 



THE REFORMATION 12/ 

land was respected as having a man at the helm. If 
he grasped power it was only because he sought to 
promote in the speediest possible manner the glory of 
God and the prosperity and happiness of his country. 

He died September 3, 1658, and was buried in 
Westminster Abbey. In 1661, when the reaction 
came and another king was placed on the throne, his 
grave was broken open and the body hung. Later it 
was beheaded, and men who would not have dared to 
speak evil of him when living, insulted the dead face 
of Cromwell elevated on a pole. Let us think of 
Oliver Cromwell as '* An inspired hero who wrought 
in the consciousness of a God-appointed mission, who 
humiliated himself only before God and never before 
man, and to whom the English people are largely in- 
debted for that liberty which made them foremost 
among the people of the world," as a Christian nation. 

(2) John Milton [idoS-idy^). — One of the best 
types of Puritanism is John Milton the English poet. 
He was born when the Puritans began to gain control 
over reHgion and politics and he died when their con- 
trol began to sink. As the secretary of council he 
saw at first hand all the political and religious move- 
ments, and was responsible for some of them. 

Born in the home of a musician he inherited his 
poetical temperament and his skill on the organ and 



128 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

lute. Early his father directed his studies in Greek, 
Latin, Hebrew and Italian, "Which," as he describes, 
" I seized with such eagerness that from the tenth year 
of my age, I scarcely ever went from my lessons to 
bed before midnight." At Cambridge he took the de- 
gree of the Master of Arts, afterwards retiring to his 
father's home where he wrote several poems. After 
the death of his father, by his writings, he entered 
into the controversies of his time, being elected after 
King Charles's execution, as Secretary to the Council 
of State. In this position it is said that his pen was 
mightier than Cromwell's sword. 

So much study had effected his eyesight and when 
Cromwell was dead and the monarchy was restored he 
was obliged both by his practical opinion and his eye- 
sight to return to private life. Here his temper be- 
came hard and exacting. Almost in a literal bondage 
did he keep his daughters, who were forced to read to 
him in languages that they did not understand. " Clad 
in black he sate in his chamber hung with rusty green 
tapestry, his fair brown hair falling as of old over a 
clear severe face that still retained much of its youth- 
ful beauty." Here he wrote one of the greatest poems 
of literature, Paradise Lost. This is the great poem 
of Puritanism ; it is the struggle of good and evil 
which is pictured here, the great earnest struggle of all 



THE REFORMATION 1 29 

Puritans. But like the Puritans it lacks that human 
sympathy, and that consciousness of love and sun- 
shine that is found in Shakespeare. It is the story of 
a lost cause. 

(3) John Bunyan (^1628-1688). — We see the in- 
ward life of the Puritan most clearly in John Bun- 
yan. He was the son of a poor tinker. Even in his 
childhood he fancied that he had visions of heaven 
and hell. He says : ** When I was but a child of nine 
or ten years old, these things did so distress my soul 
that in the midst of my many sports and childish 
vanities, amidst my vain companions, I was often 
much cast down and afflicted in my mind therewith. 
Yet could I not let go my sins." The sins were 
hockey and dancing on the village green, and other 
childlike sports that are encouraged to-day. In 1645 
he was in the army under Cromwell, still wrestling 
with an overpowering sense of sin created by the 
Puritanism in which he lived. Hardly twenty years 
of age he married a " godly " wife, young and penni- 
less as himself. It is said that they were so poor that 
they could scarce muster a spoon and plate between 
them. Perhaps his poverty was responsible for the 
deep gloom into which he fell. So sinful did he feel, 
that : " Methought I saw as if the sun that shone in 
heaven did grudge to give me light, and as if the very 



I30 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

stones in the streets and the tiles upon the houses did 
band themselves against me. Oh, how happy now 
was every creature over me." 

After two years of dark spiritual struggle, Bunyan 
was at last assured of the forgiveness of his sins and 
became a Baptist minister. His preaching was illegal 
and gave great offense, and when Cromwell had died 
and the King had returned to the throne, he was cast 
into prison with many others and for twelve years 
suffered separation from his family and the world. 
Here he wrote the great Puritan Book, " Pilgrim's 
Progress," which later became popular. In 1672 
King Charles issued an Act of Indulgence, i. e., tol- 
eration to all forms of religious beliefs. The prisons 
were emptied and Bunyan came out and published his 
Pilgrim's Progress. By 1688, before Bunyan died ten 
editions had been published, its popularity proved that 
the religious sympathies of England were mainly 
Puritan. 

In the book we see the power that the Bible had 
over the imagination of the middle class. He repre- 
sents a pilgrim's journey from the City of Destruction 
to the Heavenly City. It is an imaginative journey 
such as only the Puritan mind could take. In the 
journey he goes through the Slough of Despond and 
Doubting Castle, and he meets and is tempted by Mr. 



THE REFORMATION I3I 

Worldly Wiseman and Mr. Legality. The book shows 
supremely the Puritan attitude. God, Heaven and 
Christ far away, and man journeying alone through 
difficulties to the end. There is no trace of the beau- 
tiful Christian idea of brotherhood, all men working 
together and helping each other as they progress to- 
wards Heaven. 

The last years of Bunyan's life were spent as a Bap- 
tist minister. He died in London in 1688. 

33. Puritan Emigration. 

All during these years the eyes of English Puritans 
were fixed on the little Puritan settlement in America. 
In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers, to escape persecution, 
had sailed to Plymouth and since then many attempts 
had been made for a charter establishing a colony in 
Massachusetts. In 1629 Charles made the grant and 
the Puritans regarded it as one of God's blessings. 
Every Puritan household looked towards America, 
with a '* quite stern enthusiasm " which marked the 
temper of the time. The Puritan emigrations began 
on such a scale as England had never before 
seen. " They were in great part men of the profes- 
sional and middle classes ; some of them men of large 
landed estates, some zealous clergymen like Cotton, 
Hooker, and Roger Williams, some shrewd London 
lawyers and scholars from Oxford. These men were 



132 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

not driven forth by earthly want or greed of gold, but 
by their devotion to God, and their zeal for a godly 
worship and a quiet religious life. 

But with the strength and manliness of Puritans 
came its narrowness and bigotry. Roger Williams 
was driven from Massachusetts to Rhode Island be- 
cause he said that his conscience should be regarded. 
The Book of Common Prayer and church government 
by bishops were rejected. 

In eleven years two hundred emigrant ships had 
crossed the Atlantic, and twenty thousand Englishmen 
had found refuge in the new land. 

34. The Fall of Puritanism. 

Puritanism did not succeed because it lacked the 
true Christian spirit. They were too strict and paid 
too much attention to the letter of the law and not 
enough to the spirit. They lacked the feeling of 
brotherhood which binds all men together. 

Thus when Cromwell died, the external power of 
Puritanism died. He was their head, to him they 
gave allegiance, and when no one rose up with his 
power, the party as a political party became divided 
and in division lost their strength. 

England had been ruled too many years by a mon- 
arch to accept readily the idea of a Protector in 
any other than Cromwell. Charles II rode in to 



THE REFORMATION 133 

London in majesty and pomp. The pefiod of the 
Restoration of the Monarchy was, as any reaction is, 
a period of debauchery and the reinstatement of all 
that the Puritans had expelled. But when the reaction 
was over and the pettiness of Puritanism had been dis- 
pelled, then its real work and value began to show it- 
self. A kingdom of righteousness had been built not 
in the external government as Cromwell hoped, and 
as Calvin strove for, but in the hearts and consciences 
of men. The most of Englishmen took up a sober, 
earnest life based on a love of Protestantism and Free- 
dom. Suddenly the influences that moulded history 
up to this time — theological discussions, traditions and 
customs, lost power over the minds of men. Industry 
and science, the love of popular freedom and law, 
tended to force England to bring every custom and 
tradition to the test of the common sense of man. 

35. Rise of Denominations. 

Before leaving the period of Puritanism we must 
take a glimpse at the various bodies of Christians who 
separated themselves from the English Church and 
from which we derive the divided state of Christendom 
under which the cause of Christianity suffers to-day. 
We will try to study them in the order in which they 
came into existence. 

(i) Presbyterians. — In 1571 when Queen Elizabeth 



134 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITV 

was trying to establish civil order and uniformity by en- 
deavoring to strike a medium between the Catholic and 
Protestant parties of her realm, there arose a company 
of clergymen who gathered under the leadership of 
Thomas Cartwright. Cartwright had returned from 
Geneva with a strong faith in Calvin and the system of 
Christian government devised by him. He and his fol- 
lowers recklessly condemned all the ritual, the sur- 
plice, the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, as 
not only Popish but as idolatrous. And further, and 
this is what had weight with Elizabeth, he advocated 
the doing away with bishops and putting all power in 
the hands of the presbyters. He claimed that the 
Bible decreed that they should rule both Church and 
State. 

Cartwright organized his system among the people 
of Warwick. There Avas a general gathering for all 
clergy and a Synod for each diocese. The movement 
was suppressed but not until it had gained great power 
in Parliament and had brought about civil war. In 
the chaotic condition of the Church and State, separa- 
tion took place and in the Act of Toleration, 1688, 
their life as a separate organization was recognized. 

(2) Congregationalist. — In 1581 Robert Browne, 
an enthusiastic and gifted preacher, opposed the neces- 
sity of having the bishop's permission to preach. He 



THE REFORMATION 135 

claimed neither Pope, bishop nor presbyter had any 
power, but the whole congregation. Browne founded 
congregations of his own which only lasted for a short 
time. He, however, unstable and greatly afraid of suf- 
fering, conformed to the State Church before he died. 
His ideas had a wide influence. In 1592 there were 
twenty thousand Brownists in England. They were 
persecuted and fled to Holland. 

It was left for John Robinson to develop Brownism 
into Congregationalism. Driven out with his congre- 
gation in 1608 he found refuge in Amsterdam. Later 
this party was known as Independents ; they claimed 
the " right to self-administration and self-government 
by the common and free consent of the people inde- 
pendently and immediately under Christ." In 1620 
they sought a home in New England where they 
were free to carry out their ideas. 

(3) Baptists. — Of the Independents a small part 
drifted into greater differences with the established 
Church and the Congregational movements. They as- 
serted that unconscious children could not have part 
in the redeemed humanity. As a symbol, baptism 
could only belong to adults. Thus they became 
known as Baptists. 

(4) Quakers. — In 1650 appeared the sect known as 
Quakers. The founder of the sect was George Fox. 



136 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

According to Fox's own account, " This was Justice 
Bennet of Derby, who was the first that called us 
Quakers because I bade him tremble at the work of 
the Lord." The name has been commonly explained 
from the Quaker's agitation when moved by the Holy 
Ghost. Fox was brought to London and examined 
before Cromwell who quickly saw that there was 
nothing in Quakers to excite his apprehension, and pro- 
nounced the doctrine and its founder to be irreproach- 
able. The tenets of their faith opposed an educated 
ministry as unscriptural and an injury to the Church. 
They hated war, objected to oaths, did away with sac- 
raments, and upheld the individual guidance of the 
Holy Spirit. They were always noted for their per- 
sonal piety. 

If we notice carefully there is no disagreement on 
the fundamental truths of Christianity^, God, Christ 
and the Holy Spirit. The disagreement and separa- 
tion was occasioned by the desire of the Established 
Church for uniformit}^ and the desire of those who 
separated for religious freedom. Were not both 
wrong ? 

During these great struggles, the actors saw little 
of the real significance, we can see that all the con- 
fusion under God's guidance administered to a higher 
order, an order where true Christianit}^ will depend 



THE REFORMATION 137 

not on uniformity in outward things, but on the in- 
ward spirit and devotion to Christ. 

36. Translations of the Bible. 

During this time two translations of the Bible had 
been made. One the Geneva Bible, and the other the 
Bishops' Bible, a translation under the direction of 
Archbishop Parker and published in 1568. In 161 1 
was published the version still in use and known as 
the King James' version. James saw clearly that a 
new translation would add to the glory of his reign. 
Forty-six scholars were selected, some from each of 
the Universities, and from the Clergy of all schools of 
thought. These were divided into companies who 
met separately. Each scholar translated a chapter 
and then it was handed on for final revision to the 
other companies in turn. No pains were spared by 
the translators and the general acceptance of their 
work has proved that it was the greatest translation 
of English literature. 

37. The Age of Reason. 

It was natural that all these religious wars and 
persecutions and debates should be followed by dis- 
gust with religion in general. In the midst of the 
religious discussions, arose the movement of science. 
If the Puritans had won the right to read the 
Bible and think for themselves on what they read, 



138 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

they won also the right for all men to think 
freely. 

While the persecutions and debates were in prog- 
ress, men began to observe the world about them and 
write and publish what they saw. No longer did the 
Church absorb the intellectual energy of the world. 
In this connection we should remember the name of 
Francis Bacon who transformed the methods of get- 
ting knowledge and instead of turning constantly to 
the past, looked on the present and by observation 
and comparison and experiment, made a new study of 
politics, man and nature. In these days Gilbert dis- 
covered the magnetic nature of the earth, Harvey 
the circulation of the blood, Newton the law of gravi- 
tation. Philosophy became more free and conse- 
quently more varied. Hobbes, Locke and Hume are 
names to be remembere'd. 

Such movements were bound to effect Christianity. 
Its traditions were examined from the stand of nature 
and reason. The idea of a revealed religion was cast 
aside, and in its place an attempt was made to substi- 
tute a religion of nature which considered God, im- 
mortality and virtue. There were many men who 
stood against this utter dethronement of Christ. 
Among these we should especially remember Bishop 
Butler who in his efforts wrote a famous book 



THE REFORMATION 139 

entitled " The Analogy of Religion, Natural and 
Revealed." 

But the movement could not be checked. It was 
the natural result of the freedom to think and to read, 
and the reaction against Puritanism. All over Eng- 
land and Europe it spread, carrying with it scepticism 
and immoral living. 

The result is seen in its most terrible aspect in 
France, in the Great Revolution of 1789. There the 
people oppressed by King Louis XVI and the nobil- 
ity, rose in their might and took possession of the 
land. The king was executed and the nobility driven 
out of the country. Then, lacking the Religion of 
Christianity, and believing only in reason, the Reign 
of Terror began which soils the pages of history. 
Everything was changed, a new calendar instituted 
which made that year, the year One, placed ten days 
in each week instead of seven and in the ancient 
cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris enthroned a beauti- 
ful but wicked woman as the " Goddess of Reason." 
All who did not agree were imprisoned and sent to 
the guillotine. The prisons were filled, while robbery 
and crime were everywhere. The French Revolution 
was the last struggle in the Reformation. 

So closed the age preceding our own. An age in 
which Christianity was misunderstood, the people 



140 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

misguided and a controling influence lacking. In the 
Middle Ages too, Christianity was misunderstood and 
the people misdirected, but to a degree the Papacy 
kept a control of men which was totally lost in the 
Reformation. It was left for our age to give a new 
and truer interpretation to the great Christian religion, 
and take a step forward in making it the greatest 
power in the Ufe of society. 



DIVISION FOUR 

THE NEW LIGHT 

38. Methodism and John Wesley (1703-1791). 

When the nineteenth century dawned there was 
present within the Church of England, a type of 
Christianity known as Methodism which was the in- 
troduction to the revival of Christianity. 

In the town of Epworth, England, was born John 
Wesley in 1703. He was the son of the parish priest 
and received his first steps in education from a strict 
but loving mother. He was graduated from Oxford 
in 1726 and was made a priest in the Church of Eng- 
land. He had a brother Charles who was deeply 
reHgious and who organized a society among his fel- 
lows which met every night for mutual improvement 
and religious devotion, and who spent their spare time 
during the day in giving religious instructions in the 
charity schools, jails and workhouses ; and by their 
life and conversation endeavored to influence for good 
those who had unhappily caught the materialistic 
spirit. 

John became leader of this Guild or " Holy Club" 

141 



142 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

as it was called. They were very systematic in their 
rehgious life, following the Prayer Book by fasting on 
all the appointed days, and receiving the Holy Com- 
munion on every Sunday and Holy Day. They also 
denied themselves all luxury and amusement that they 
might save money for benevolent deeds. So much 
method in religion gave them the name : " Metho- 
dists." 

In 1735 they came to Georgia, America, as mission- 
aries, but soon returned disappointed in their work. 
On board ship they met some people who called 
themselves Moravians and whose special religious be- 
lief was Conversion, i. e., that each believer ought to 
be able to point to some definite time and place when 
and where he received assurance of God's pardon and 
salvation. It all appealed to Wesley who felt that he 
had never been converted. After much earnest devo- 
tion he tells us that on May 24, 1738, the conversion 
came ; he trusted Christ and became assured that his 
sins were taken away. After his conversion he began 
the life of a traveling preacher. The pulpits of the 
churches were freely opened to him, and he had great 
success in arousing the spiritual life of the people. 
His message was, that only the soul of man can know 
God, and that when the soul truly opens its windows 
the Holy Spirit enters and possesses it. 



THE NEW LIGHT 143 

Wesley was soon joined by George Whitefield and 
together they held meetings in the open fields, some- 
times before large audiences of twenty thousand peo- 
ple. Together they effected men in a most mysterious 
way, causing strong men to cryand shout. Benjamin 
PVanklin thus describes one of Whitefield's charity 
sermons : " As he proceeded, I began to soften and 
concluded to give some copper ; and then a stroke of 
his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined 
me to give the silver, and he finished so admirably 
that I emptied my pockets wholly in the collector's 
dish, gold and all." 

Wesley was a great preacher, but a still greater or- 
ganizer. While he desired to remain true to the 
English Church, yet he was impatient and appointed 
lay preachers not waiting for the Bishop's consent. 
He organized preaching circuits in every part of 
England and Wales, and opened " mission halls " in 
the cities. Wesley's enthusiasm and earnestness made 
him welcome among the people, especially in those 
parishes where the priests were lax, and soon the 
people considered the work of Wesley as valid and 
truly authorized as if it had received the sanction of 
the Bishop. This aroused the Church and in some 
places the priest refused to administer the Holy Com- 
munion to followers of Wesley. That his workers 



144 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAMTY 

should always receive at the Church was one of \\'es- 
ley's strong points, and this refusal on the part of the 
Established Church, hastened a desire for division 
which Wesley himself opposed ; — he did not want a 
separate organization, he wanted to aid and uplift the 
Church by his work. Just before his death he said : 
" I hold all the doctrines of the Church of England, I 
love her Liturgy, and approve her plan of discipline, 
and only wish it could be carried out." 

After Wesley's death, for a time his wishes were 
carried out and as late as 1793 the " conference" de- 
clared : " We are determined in a body to remain in 
the Church of England." 

The direct result of the jMethodist revival was the 
great emphasis placed on preaching. The clergy 
turned over a new leaf and began to preach the Gospel 
to men and women who were neglecting their souls' 
health, and were unconscious of the need of Christ. 
Before the close of the eighteenth century a whole 
army of sincere and earnest men were engaged in re- 
claiming all ranks of men from the depths of sin into 
which they had sunk. 

While this movement was going on among the 
middle class, there was a similar movement away from 
reason and natural religion back towards belief in the 
near relation of man's soul to God, among the Intel- 



THE NEW LIGHT 145 

lectual class. This was led by a German philoso- 
pher. 

39. Immanuel Kant (i 724-1804), the most influen- 
tial philosopher of modern times. 

He was the son of a saddler of Scotch descent. 
Educated in Germany he took his degrees and became 
professor of logic at Konigsburg. His private life 
was most uneventful. As Socrates could hardly be 
induced to go beyond the walls of Athens, so Kant 
never left the city of his birth during the thirty years 
of his professorship. He was so regular in his habits 
of study and exercise that it is said people set their 
clocks by his movements. Kant was a man of un- 
questionable devotion to truth,' severe in his moral 
principles, he was kindly and courteous in manner, a 
bold and fearless advocate of political liberty and a 
firm believer in human progress. 

His right to a position in a history of Christianity, 
is due to the fact that he made men find God within 
them, within their moral beings and not in nature or 
reason. He said that the pure reason took away 
God, but the practical reason could not exist without 
him. Kant had no place for a revealed Christianity 
through Jesus Christ, he saw only a great moral 
system with God at the centre. 

While Wesley was making the common men look 



146 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

within and recognize an indwelling spirit which mani- 
fested itself by emotions, Kant was making the schol- 
arly man look within and recognize a moral demand 
which must manifest itself by virtuous living. 

They each prepared Christian men for the next 
great step in the progress of Christianity. 

40. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). 

The founder of our present theological ideas of 
Christianity was a German, Friedrich Schleiermacher, 
(Schlei-er-mar-ker) 1768- 1 8 34. His boyhood was 
spent in a Moravian school where he was deeply in- 
fluenced by religion. Graduating from the University 
of Halle, for a time he became a teacher, but later a 
clergyman. He soon began to publish discourses on 
religion, which served to arouse Germany as Wesley 
had aroused England. Later he became professor of 
theology and philosophy and to his death took the 
lead in the religious movements of his time. Schlei- 
ermacher took his stand on religion, as the great ne- 
cessity of man, and he saved it from its friends and 
enemies. He asserted that religion was not thought, 
or evolution, or reason, and while it may include all 
these departments of personal life it is simply : the 
feeling of man's dependence on God, the deepest in- 
stinct of man, which arises from the endowment of 
humanity with God's image. In contrast with all 



THE NEW LIGHT 14/ 

medieval theology, Schleiermacher asserted that God 
lives in the world, and has a living relationship with 
humanity. Here is where Jesus Christ has a preemi- 
nent position, for the living relationship is not de- 
pendent on a Christ of time and place, but on the 
eternal Christ who has forever lived and dwelt with 
God, and who holds continual relationship with the 
human spirit. Thus is sin overcome and by entering 
into Christ and through Christ into the divine life, 
man attains union and reconciliation with God. 

Schleiermacher asserted three important theological 
positions which we should remember and understand 
in so far as possible, (i) That life was not a period 
of probation, but a period of divine education. All 
history from Abraham to the present day is one great 
chain of events by which God instructs man, raising 
his Hfe and giving little by little. His divine powers. 
The individual life is a life to be spent under God's in- 
struction that it may aid in the great progress of the 
divine life. This was quite different from the old idea 
that God put man in the world to see how well he 
could do and then saved or condemned him according 
as he succeeded or failed. 

(2) The Holy Bible was an account of progress- 
ive revelation. By progressive revelation is meant 
that the earlier portion may not be in harmony with 



148 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

the later; that the later and higher truth may con- 
tradict the earlier and lower. The men of reason had 
repelled the Bible because it was not consistent and 
appeared to sanction what was not right. Schleier- 
macher said that they were wrong and that they mis- 
understood the Bible and that it would be an incom- 
plete revelation if it did not tell of the childish faith of 
Abraham and the more perfect faith of Paul. Schleier- 
macher showed how the Bible was a wonderful book 
for it was the witness of God's divine instruction of 
the great world. 

(3) The Church as an institution is vitally con- 
nected with the well-being of man. To the Church 
as an organized institution of men who follow Christ, 
Schleiermacher assigned the highest- significance. 
Salvation was not an individual process, but was ac- 
complished only through the fellowship of the Chris- 
tians. The spirit draws men closely together, and 
thereby man is exalted by his membership in an in- 
stitution where Christ is the head. To the Church is 
committed the work of educating humanity under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, it is to preserve and ex- 
tend Christianity until the Kingdom comes, and 
Christ's prayer is fulfilled. Therefore its institutions, 
its meetings and sacraments possess a sacred and 
building character, essential to the well-being of society. 



THE NEW LIGHT 149 

Schleiermacher affected Christianity profoundly and 
he still utters the truth to which all that is highest in 
Christianity responds. In Germany all great theolo- 
gians are his disciples ; in England every student con- 
sciously or unconsciously is his follower, and even the 
Roman Church has caught his spirit and been affected 
by it. 

Thus began the nineteenth century, the century of 
a new light in Christianity. With the assurance of the 
Love of God in the world, with the conviction that 
His great plan was to be victorious and a blessing 
in the end, with the victory of freedom that had 
been won, freedom to read, and think and express 
one's thoughts, men and women found Hfe a great, 
joyous, earnest task just what God meant it should 
be. 

41. The Oxford Movement. 

In the midst of this new life were many who were 
tired of the confusion of sects, and the freedom of ex- 
pression. So many varying ideas were presented, that 
a man could not tell exactly what he believed. These 
sighed for the days of faith when there was but one 
Church and one belief. Some felt that there was but 
one remedy for division and that was to restore the 
Church to its old supremacy over the life of men. 
This movement in the Roman Church gave rise to the 



150 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

reestablishment of the Jesuit Order which had been 
dissolved. 

In the Enghsh Church this tendency crystahized in 
the Oxford IMovement. At the University of Oxford 
a band of students was formed who beheved in the 
Church as the seat of authority and who wished to 
impress it on the people. These men liked elaborate 
ritual, gorgeous vestments and much ceremony in 
worship. They circulated a lot of literature setting 
forward their ideas called " The Tracts of the Times," 
and because of this the men have been called " Trac- 
tarians." Prominent among these men were Edward 
Pusey, John Keble, Edward INIanning and John Henry 
Newman. 

The two men last named were so desirous for au- 
thority that they left the Enghsh Church and entered 
the Roman Catholic. These men have always been 
known as High Churchmen, because they had great 
respect for the Church and her ritual. Opposed to 
these were Professor Maurice, Dean Stanley and 
Canon Kingsley who sought to enthrone Christ in the 
hearts of men by a plain service and less ritual ; these 
w^ere called '' Broad Churchmen." 

Both kinds of churchmen are necessary for they 
represent two kinds of character : one makes much of 
the organization, the other of the spirit within the 



THE NEW LIGHT 151 

organization. Each is necessary because both the 
organization and spirit are necessary. But the man 
who serves the organization must not neglect the 
spirit, and the man who serves the spirit must not 
neglect the organization. 

42. Sunday-schools. 

These were originated about 1780 by Robert Raikes, 
a printer in Gloucester, England. Up to this time the 
children had been privately taught their catechism at 
home, and pubHcly catechized in church occasion- 
ally. 

On investigation in the suburbs of Gloucester, Mr. 
Raikes was informed that " on Sunday the streets 
were filled with a multitude of wretches, who having 
no employment on that day spent their time in noise 
and riot." To check this among the children he 
organized a school to teach reading and the Church 
Catechism to as many children as he could send. 
The idea successfully carried out by Mr. Raikes was 
soon introduced everywhere. Such was the origin of 
the Sunday-school. 

We must remember that it came into existence 
when parents ceased to teach the essentials of religion 
to their children. The true place for religious in- 
struction to children is the home, the true teachers 
are the mothers and fathers aided by the ministers. 



152 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

43. Public Education. 

One of the greatest results of Christianity is Public 
Education. Every Christian land to-day requires that 
its boys and girls attend school. This is the recog- 
nition of what Christ taught, that under every coat, be 
it the soiled coat of the newsboy, or the plush coat of 
the milHonaire's son, is a living soul, a being that has 
unknown possibilities of development, therefore the 
democratic Christian State says that each boy and 
girl is entitled to the best possible start towards the 
attainment of the fullest manhood and womanhood. 
Education should bring the conviction that Hfe is 
progress and that progress in the individual means 
progress in the nation. 

44. Christian Heroes of the Nineteenth Century. 

Thus we arrive at our own Age. And the ques- 
tion is : What is the Christianity of the nineteenth 
century ? We are too near to judge the value or the 
lasting qualities of certain lines of Christian thought, 
those can only be explained when distance gives per- 
spective. What we can do, is to study the lives of some 
of the great men of our age, who, animated by Chris- 
tianity have enriched the world by deeds and thoughts 
and should therefore stand before us as examples. 

45. David Livingstone and Missions. 
Immediately following the Reformation, the Protes- 



THE NEW LIGHT 153 

tant Church did Httle towards sending the Gospel to 
foreign lands. The missionary zeal, which was so 
prominent in the early days, was lost in the discussions 
and religious wars. At the close of the eighteenth 
century missionary work was renewed. Societies 
were formed and missionaries sent in all directions, to 
China, Japan, Africa and the islands of the seas. The 
first Christian hero of our own time whom we will 
notice is David Livingstone (1807- 187 3), a missionary 
and explorer. 

Livingstone was born in Scotland and at ten years 
of age was an operator in a cotton factory. Six a. m. 
found him at the loom, and at six p. m. he was still 
there. Thirsty for education, his first half crown 
purchased a latin grammar. As soon as possible he 
left the factory and went to Glasgow University. He 
hired a garret, cooked his own food while he studied 
incessantly. The Classics prepared him for his study 
of the African languages, and science for his task of 
exploration. After a course in medicine which gave 
him skill in surgery and made him known in Africa as 
a divine healer, he heard some theological lectures 
and was then ordained to the ministry and offered 
himself to the London Missionary Society as a mis- 
sionary. He was immediately sent to Africa, the 
Dark Continent, where from a mountain-top on a 



154 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

clear morning, might be seen smoke rising from one 
thousand villages in which no white man had ever 
stood. 

The parting between the man and his family was 
characteristic. His plans having been made, he could 
not start too soon. Going to his home for the last 
night before he sailed, he sat with his family long into 
the night and talked of the dangers and possibilities ; 
then together they read the ninety-first Psalm : " Thou 
shalt not be afraid of any terror by night, nor for the 
arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness, nor for the sickness that destroy- 
eth in the noonday." Then in one earnest prayer, his 
father commended him to the care of God. 

Landing at the Cape he mastered the people's lan- 
guage in seven months. Then he began his march 
across the continent. With no guide but his com- 
pass, he left Zambesi on the eastern coast and plunged 
into the forest. Through reeking soil, and thorns 
and briers, in the face of dangers, because of serpents 
and lions, with no food but that which his gun pro- 
vided, he went on day after day. Nearly two years . 
were consumed, and the last three hundred miles he 
was so ill that he was carried tied to the back of an 
ox. Little can we imagine his joy when he reached 
the Congo River and made his way to the sea. 



THE NEW LIGHT 155 

There he refused a trip to England in a vessel which 
was about to sail, because he had promised his native 
helpers that if they would go with him, he would 
return them to their friends safe and sound. Back- 
wards over the continent he retraced his steps, teach- 
ing the black men that his word was good. 

This geographical feat became the means for fur- 
thering missionary enterprise. Returning to Eng- 
land, he was received as a hero. He published the 
account of his travels and discoveries and thereby 
raised money with which he returned to Africa. 

During his second journey he made a circle of one 
thousand miles and collected facts that secured inter- 
ference with the slave trade which was carried on by 
the Portuguese in a most inhuman way. On this ex- 
pedition he discovered the key to the River system of 
Africa. Between his second and third expeditions, 
Mrs. Livingstone died. Broken hearted, Mr. Living- 
stone went to England, arranged for his son's future, 
and returned to Africa to continue his investigation 
against the slave trade and follow out the clew, found 
in the second journey, to the source of the Nile. 

Twenty-five years of exposure had worn on him, 
making him less able to bear the privations of the for- 
est. It was on this expedition that Henry M. Stanley 
was sent to find Livingstone. Weak and sick, with 



156 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

provisions gone, in great danger because of the decep- 
tion of natives, at last, Stanley found him. For four 
months they labored together. Then Stanley urged 
Livingstone to return with him. True to his purpose 
to the very end, he refused. Weak and sick he 
traveled on, gaining information which made Africa 
an open and known country, until one night, his faith- 
ful attendant entered his tent and found him dead. 
While kneeling in prayer with his head on his pillow, 
God had called him. The natives carried his body to 
the coast and it was buried in the Nave of Westminster 
Abbey, London. Livingstone after his first great 
journey in Africa could have Hved in ease in England. 
Hundreds of positions were open to him, but he re- 
fused the easy task and took the harder, obeying the 
African call and giving his life to that service. 

Livingstone was a man who made his Christianity 
practical. Stanley said of him : " His gentleness never 
forsakes him, his hopefulness never deserts. No harass- 
ing anxiety can make him complain. To stern dic- 
tates of duty alone has he sacrificed home and ease, 
the pleasures, refinements and luxuries of civilized life. 
His is the Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the 
Roman, the enduring resolution of the Anglo-Saxon, 
never to surrender his obligation until he can write 
* finis ' to his work. His religion made him the most 



THE NEW LIGHT 15/ 

companionable of men and indulgent of masters. Each 
Sunday morning he gathered his little flock about him, 
and read the prayers and a chapter from the Bible and 
delivered a short address in a natural, unaffected and 
sincere tone." 

And the religious life he taught was practical. 
The black men under his guidance irrigated their land, 
built houses, developed vineyards and stock farms. 
His example of serving others was contagious, and to 
the natives, Christianity became primarily a religion of 
service. 

46. Lord Shaftesbury. (Anthony Ashley Cooper, 
1801-1885.) 

In the middle ages we watched the Christianity of 
the clergy, in the nineteenth century we look to the 
laity for evidences of Christianity. This means that 
Christianity has come out of the monastery and the 
Church and is making its way among men. 

In the hfe of Lord Shaftesbury we come into the 
presence of a great Christian layman, we see here how 
one does not need to be a clergyman in order to save 
souls and bodies. Lord Shaftesbury was born in a 
family of the highest rank and greatest wealth of 
England. He was the seventh earl of Shaftesbury. 
After the course of the wealthy English boy, he at- 
tended Harrow and Oxford, enjoyed years of travel in 



158 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

which all narrowness and prejudice were expelled, and 
at twenty-five he took his seat in Parliament. 

For more than forty years, when Parliament rose at 
midnight and all its members went home, Shaftesbury 
went into the byways and hedges to search for those 
of whom Christ said : " In as much as ye have done it 
unto the least of these. My brethren, ye have done it 
unto Me." A member of the cabinet tells how on a 
wintry night he sat with Shaftesbury beside his fire- 
place watching the sparks and flames fly up the chim- 
ney. Within, all was comfort and beauty and happi- 
ness, without sleet and wind beat upon the window. 
At ten o'clock Shaftesbury excused himself and went 
out into the night to search for the lost and the fallen. 
Going to the ends of London Bridge, there in the 
shelter he would find twenty or thirty men and women 
huddled together. These he would carry to a shelter 
in the East End of London, and there at his own ex- 
pense, he would provide fire and food and comfort. 
We must remember Shaftesbury as a great Christian 
philanthropist. 

For ten years he gave his Sunday afternoons to the 
exploration of the lanes and alleys of London. He 
reported to ParHament, and reminded them that one- 
fourth of London's population were born in rooms 
where " walls ooze grime and bricks sweat filth," that 



THE NEW LIGHT 159 

in some places people were so huddled together, that in 
cellars, four families would occupy one room, with only- 
chalk Hnes on the floor for divisions. To better this 
condition, he interested Mr. George Peabody, a Boston 
banker, and hundreds of old shackles were condemned, 
and model lodging houses constructed. In ten years 
eighty thousand people enjoyed the benefit of his 
philanthropy, while his lodging houses became the 
models for the world. 

With this movement he organized " ragged schools," 
attended by ten thousand children ; Sunday-schools, 
night schools, industrial schools, where boys and girls 
were taught not only sacred truths, but also how to 
make their own clothes, how to weave door mats, how 
to print hand bills, etc. His reform among the coster- 
mongers will long be remembered. These were men 
and women who led a miserable existence selling fish, 
fruit, old iron, etc. Their children inhabited the 
streets and grew up into criminals. For them he 
founded schools, while for the parents he established 
their business on a better basis, by systematizing it 
and providing it with methods which raised it to a 
respectable liveHhood. 

Even the donkeys driven by these poor people re- 
ceived his care. He organized a humane society, and 
gave an annual prize to the one whose beast showed 



l6o THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

the best care. One night near the end of his life, 
when he was attending one of the costermonger meet- 
ings, a noble donkey groomed and decorated with 
flowers was presented to him. In accepting this token 
of the people's esteem he said : " In closing my long 
life, I desire that it only may be said of me that I 
have served men with a patience and resignation like 
unto this faithful beast." 

We cannot overestimate the courage and self-denial 
which was in Shaftesbury's character. He loved 
music and literature, he enjoyed the company of 
statesmen, noble men and gracious women, his vast 
ancestral mansion with its attractive rooms, vast 
library and atmosphere of luxury and refinement, all 
these he would put aside, to spend days and nights 
among the dirty and poor. For fifty years the man 
who could have enjoyed ease and luxury was the 
hardest worked man in Parliament. One night 
Shaftesbury rose in Parliament and said, " My Lords, 
I am now an old man. When I feel age creeping on 
me I know that I must soon die. I am deeply grieved, 
for I cannot bear to leave the world, with so much 
misery in it." That night, while his daughter read the 
twenty-third Psalm to him, his spirit was called to the 
land where God shall wipe away all tears. Three 
days later a plain hearse followed by four carriages 



THE NEW LIGHT l6l 

drove from his home to Westminister Abbey. Man- 
sions, clubs, shops, factories and homes were closed. 
Thousands lined the streets and stood with uncovered 
heads as the funeral procession passed. 

Next day Mr. Gladstone rose in Parliament and 
said : " The safety of our country is not in laws or 
legislators, but in Christian gentlemen like unto 
Shaftesbury." 

47. William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898). 

England can boast of another great Christian hero, 
William Ewart Gladstone, a statesman, orator and 
author, who in each position made men conscious of 
the Christianity that governed his life. Born and 
brought up in wealth and luxury, he graduated from 
Oxford in 1831 and, after travehng in Italy, in 1832, 
then only twenty-three years of age, he took a seat in 
the House of Commons. For over sixty years he 
held a place in ParHament and rose to the position of 
Prime Minister. We must remember his career by 
the Christian ideals which animated it, for his whole 
life was an attempt to reconcile politics with the Ser- 
mon on the Mount. This ideal is seen in his book 
published as early in his career as 1838 and entitled, 
" The State in its Relations with the Church." 

It will be impossible to follow his political career. 
We will select two great achievements in his life 



1 62 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

which show us the man of wealth and leisure inter- 
ested in the poor and weak. 

First the abolition of the corn laws. England was 
a land of great estates given over to agriculture. For 
many years there had been a high tariff on corn, so as 
to compel English people to buy the corn raised by 
the landed proprietors in England. This was protec- 
tion for the great estates, but was hard for the poor 
mechanics and people who labored in factories. In 
foreign countries great quantities of corn were being 
raised and if it could only come into England free, the 
poor people would be greatly benefited. 

Gladstone saw this and brought the matter before 
Parliament. He was violently opposed by those 
wealthy peers who were land owners and who raised 
corn. He, himself, was a land owner, and in his ad- 
vocating free corn, was deliberately hurting his own 
income. But still he continued his course, feeling 
that it was wrong for English people to suffer by pay- 
ing high prices when they could get corn so much 
cheaper from America. 

In 1849 Gladstone won, the Corn Law was re- 
pealed, and men and women joined in a great jubilee 
and hailed Mr. Gladstone as their Protector. Glad- 
stone felt that in furthering such a cause he was doing 
the will of his Father in heaven. 



THE NEW LIGHT 1 63 

The Other achievement was the release of the poor 
poHtical prisoners at Naples. In 1830 Francis II be- 
came king of Naples. In order to satisfy a popular 
demand, he called an election and created a repre- 
sentative congress of 150 men. When these as- 
sembled he laid before them an oath so unreasonable 
that they would not take it. Immediately he dis- 
solved the congress and cast seventy-six of the one 
hundred and fifty into prison. This was only the be- 
ginning of political disturbances. The king became 
an absolute monarch, putting into prison those who in 
any way opposed him. 

The conditions of the prisons were terrible. Noble- 
men were chained hand and foot, in damp and dirty 
dungeons, and there left with little food, to sicken and 
die. This continued until 1850 when Gladstone was 
taking a hoHday in Naples. Hearing of these prison- 
ers, and interested not only in the weak and oppressed, 
but also in those w^ho wanted the constitutional free- 
dom that EngHshmen enjoyed, he investigated the 
condition of these prisoners, and in pamphlets and by 
speeches so aroused the public sentiment of the world 
that the king was obliged to defend himself. While 
Gladstone did not bring about immediately the release 
of the prisoners, he did aid the great Italian patriot, 
Garibaldi, by encouragement and thereby hastened 



164 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

the overthrow of the infamous government of Fran- 
cis II. 

All the great reforms of political Hfe which took 
place in England during the latter part of this century- 
were in a large measure due to Gladstone. He was a 
man of untiring energy, strong as an oak, never idle. 
Each morning found him attending Morning Prayer 
at his Castle chapel, each Sunday found him reading 
the lessons in divine service. He was as regular in the 
fulfilment of his religious obligations' as his political 
obligations, and felt that only in so far as he faithfully 
fulfilled the former could he successfully fulfil the 
latter. His whole life was religious, and he continually 
affirmed in ParHament one great message, which every 
nation and every citizen should take to heart, that 
" England could lead the grand procession of nations, 
only as she herself walked in the path of religion and 
peace that Jesus Christ had opened." 

At an old age he retired from Parliament and was 
offered by Queen Victoria a title and a seat in the 
House of Lords. This he respectfully refused, pre- 
ferring to remain the great commoner he had always 
been. The last nine months of his life he suffered 
with a terrible facial disease that gave him great pain. 
As the end came near, his son, a priest in the 
Church of England, read the Litany. At the close 



THE NEW LIGHT 1 65 

the white Hps murmured " Amen," the last words he 
spoke. 

With the news of his death, universal grief settled 
over the nations. Monarchs sent condolence to his 
family. Every one recognized that in the death of the 
Grand Old Man, humanity had lost a friend and the 
nation a Christian leader. 

48. Phillips Brooks (1835-1892) Bishop of Massa- 
chusetts. 

To Bishop Brooks we give the highest place among 
the Christian heroes of the nineteenth century. 

We meet here a man who was a Christian because 
he loved Christ. There was no effort in this great 
character to be good, to do right, he /d?z^^<ar and because 
he loved he was good and pure and noble. Born in 
Boston in 1835, he was one of six sons and had for a 
father and mother a man and woman of deep religious 
devotion. His home life was full of family feeling. 
They delighted to be together, everything about the 
home was made so attractive that the boys at all times 
loved to be there. Before the work of the day began 
they gathered together for morning prayer, and in the 
evening after the reading and family games, they 
thanked God for His mercies, before they retired. 

From the Unitarian Church the whole family turned 
to the Episcopal, and for years filled to overflowing 



1 66 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

pew No. 60 in old St. Paul's Church on Tremont 
Street. 

At eleven years of age Phillips entered the Boston 
Latin School and in the Spring of '55 was graduated 
from Harvard College. During September and Oc- 
tober of '56, this great man had a sad experience, try- 
ing to teach in the Boston Latin School. Unable to 
maintain order, he was obliged to give up his position. 

It was a hard blow to him. He longed to be a 
teacher, but a flaming sword shut him out of his Eden. 
We to-day can but see that God had greater work for 
him to do. Acting on the advice of Dr. Walker, ' 
President of Harvard, he went to the Episcopal Theo- 
logical seminary at Alexandria, Virginia, and there 
began a life of seclusion in which his great soul and 
mind took shape and began to mature. Here he filled 
note-book after note -book with his own thoughts, and 
with the thoughts of those authors whom he had read. 
Here he gathered and stored away for future use 
many of the wonderful figures of expression, words 
and phrases, which later appeared in his preaching. 
In 1859 he was ordained and became rector of the 
Church of the Advent in Philadelphia. For ten years 
he labored in Philadelphia, at first in the Church of 
the Advent, later in the Holy Trinity. 

From the first sermon he became noted as a 



THE NEW LIGHT 1 6/ 

preacher. In those days there were no guilds and 
clubs, and a minister was expected to preach longer 
sermons than to-day. Mr. Brooks entered upon this 
life with great delight, he prepared his sermons, two 
each week, with great care, and preached them on. 
Sunday with the fervor of a divine prophet. 

His one great work during the Philadelphia resi- 
dence was his preaching against slavery. Heartily in 
sympathy with Lincoln, it gradually dawned upon him 
that it was the duty of the Church and of a Christian 
minister to sustain by sympathy, by act, and by spoken 
word the government of the country. With fervent 
passion, one sermon followed another, and the pubHc 
mind was stirred. Not only did he preach the sin of 
slavery, but more especially the sin of a divided gov- 
ernment. He urged his congregation to give un- 
faltering loyalty to the government and recognize no 
distinction between an open foe and a secret enemy. 
When the end came and great Lincoln lay dead in 
Philadelphia, from PhilHps Brooks's pulpit came a 
memorial sermon which even to-day is read and con- 
sidered the greatest memorial of America's greatest 
statesman and President. 

In 1869 he accepted a call to Trinity Church, Bos- 
ton, and here began a period of twenty years filled 
with preaching that has never been excelled. 



1 68 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

Here was done the work of his Hfe. His sermons 
in Trinity Church were as much a part of Boston and 
as eagerly sought by the visitors, as Kings' Chapel 
and the Old South Church. As a preacher his fame 
spread to foreign lands and when he was in England 
crowds thronged to hear him. 

No one can realize what a strain it was to keep up 
this exalted standard. No one knows how he was 
tempted to accept a Harvard professorship when it 
was offered, but he remained true to his calling, and 
nourished with true religion the crowds that each 
Sunday packed Trinity Church to its doors. 

In April, 1 891, the Diocesan Convention on the 
first ballot elected Mr. Brooks bishop. Before the 
election he said : " Why should I decline, who would 
not accept such a great opportunity for usefulness, 
such an enlargement of his ministry." This was the 
key-note of his short term in the Episcopate. He 
was untiring in his administration of the diocese, 
watching every detail and all the time striving to 
maintain the same standard of preaching. It is no 
wonder that he broke down and in January, 1893, was 
called home. In his last illness he is thus described : 
" The great bed was covered over with books, books 
new and old. The whole city ready to serve him, a 
host of friends longing to be with him, and he was 



THE NEW LIGHT 1 69 

alone, and had turned at last, as he had done through 
all the lonely years, to books, his best friends." 

His funeral occurred in Trinity Church and was at- 
tended by the Governor of the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts, the Mayor of Boston and delegations 
from the Legislature. When the service was over in 
the Church, another service was held without, for the 
large congregation that filled Copley Square. He 
was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cam- 
bridge. 

In the yard at Harvard stands a memorial which 
serves not only to keep green the memory of Bishop 
Brooks, but to perpetrate his idea of Christianity. It 
is a modest but commodious ^building of brick and 
stone, dedicated to Piety, Charity and Hospitality, and 
to the memory of Bishop Brooks by the following 
inscription : 

" A preacher of righteousness and hope, majestic in 
stature, impetuous in utterance, rejoicing in truth, un- 
hampered by bonds of Church or station, he brought 
by his Hfe and doctrine fresh faith to a people, fresh 
meaning to ancient creeds, to this University he gave 
constant love, large service, high example." It is the 
home of the religious life of the great University. 
Gathering as it does under one roof all religious 
bodies, it becomes the symbol of a great union in the 



170 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

future, of a twentieth century Christianity which will 
centre around ** one Lord, one faith, one God and 
Father of us all, so that we may be all of one heart, 
and of one soul united in one holy bond of truth and 
peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind 
and one mouth glorify Thee, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen." 



INSTRUCTION TO TEACHERS 



A teacher should recall in each lesson the fact that 
we are studying the greatest force in all history, a force 
that has always bettered men, held them in check, 
created armies, made possible science, made possible, 
in fact, all that we have and are, and all that we can 
hope for. 

The questions given are leaders for the scholar's 
study, topics around which he can centre material. 
Each teacher should look up the lesson thoroughly, 
not only using the text but also turning to some relia- 
ble Church History or the Encyclopaedia. With the 
subject well in hand he should make out his own list 
of questions, having in mind the points of the lesson 
which will instruct and interest his class. 

The amount of work which can be given by teach- 
ers and scholars to this course is unlimited ; but this 
much can be expected in schools where lessons are 
not studied at home: (i) a reading aloud around the 

class from the text of the sections forming the lessons; 

171 



1/2 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

(2) oral discussion of answers to questions; (3) the 
writing of concise answers. 

The teachers should pay especial attention to the 
making of the outlines on the blank pages provided, 
as the study of each division is completed ; these out- 
lines should be memorized and recalled Sunday by 
Sunday. 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1 73 

LESSON I 

Subject : Introduction. 
Read Section i. 

1. What is the subject of this course? 

2. What must we first understand ? 

3. What prevented Christianity from spreading ? 

4. Describe how Christianity was promoted by 

the Priests at Jerusalem. 

5. Name and describe the three principal ele- 

ments in the early Christian communities. 



174 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 2 

Subject : Jews and Christians. 
Read Section 2. 

1. What was the relation of early Christians to 

Judaism and to Jerusalem ? 

2. Why did Christianity flourish ? 

3. What two events occurred in the Roman 

community ? 

4. What four things do we learn from the record 

of these events ? 

5. What was the tendency of the early Chris- 

tians, and how was it stopped ? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1/5 

LESSON 3 

Subject: The Fall of Jerusalem. 
Read Section 3. 

1. Give the reason for the decay of Judaism. 

2. When and by whom was Jerusalem de- 

stroyed ? 

3. Describe the method of the Roman attack. 

4. Describe the conditions within the city. 

5. What was the result of the destruction ? 

6. Describe the life of the early Christians {a) in 

Jerusalem (J?) in Rome. 

7. Why did the Christians have such a hard 

time ? 



1^6 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 4 

Subject : Christian Martyrs. 
Read Section 4. 

1 . What are we about to try to understand ? 

2. Why was there conflict between the Romans 

and the Christians ? 

3. Give an account of the trial and death of 

Ignatius. 

4. Give an account of the trial and death of 

Polycarp. 

5. Why did these men give up their lives ? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY I// 

LESSON 5 

Subject : General Persecutions and Christian Victories. 
Read Section 5. 

1. What was a '' general persecution " ? 

2. Who ordered a general persecution and why ? 

3. How were they carried on ? Were they suc- 

cessful ? 

4. Why did Christianity conquer ? 

5. Why does Christianity endure? 



178 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 6 

Subject : Early Organization. 
Read Sections 6 and 7. 

1. What universal experience did Christianity 

have ? 

2. How did the Romans effect Christianity [a) 

in worship (d) in Church government ? 

3. Describe the ideas held by Tertullian regard- 

ing (^) the Church (<^) the Apostles. 

4. Relate the story of Cyprian's Martyrdom. 

5. What was Cyprian's work ? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1/9 

LESSON 7 

Subject : Fall of Paganism. 
Read Sections 8, 9, 10 and 11. 

I. How did the Romans effect the behefs of the 
early Church ? 
• 2. Was Christianity spreading in those days ? 
If so, how ? 

3. Describe the worship and life of the early 

Christians. 

4. What did Constantine do for Christianity ? 

5. How does the history of Christianity, so far, 

show God's hand guiding Hfe ? 



l80 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 8 

Subject: The General Councils. 
Read Section 12. 

1. What came with the Christian victories ? 

2. How did the Emperor exercise his authority 

over the Church ? • 

3. Describe the first General Council. 

4. On what question did Athanasius and Arius 

debate ? Who wdn ? 

5. Describe how the division of the East from 

the West came about, and state its value. 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY l8l 

LESSON 9 

Subject : The Barbarian Invasion. 
Read Section 13. 

1. About 440 what was the condition of the 

Empire within ? What without ? 

2. What was possible ? 

3. What does " pope " mean ? 

4. What did Leo do ? 

5. How did Leo save the Church of Rome from 

destruction ? 



1 82 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 10 

Subject : Monasticism. 
Read Sections 14 and 15. 

1. What was the result of discussions and worldly 

living within the Church ? 

2. Who was St. Anthony and what did he do ? 

3. Describe the development of hermits into 

monks. 

4. What two kinds of Christians were in the 

world ? 

5. What positions did Augustine and Ambrose 

occupy ? 

6. How was Christianity promoted and who 

were some of the missionaries ? 



OUTLINE OF DIVISION ONE 



183 



184 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON II 

Subject : The Beginning of the Middle Ages. 
Read Sections 16 and 17. 

1. After conquering the Romans, what was the 

next task for Christianity ? 

2. ' Describe the Mohammedan invasion in the 

East. 

3. Why did the Eastern Christianity decay ? 

4. What elements helped in rebuilding the 

West ? 

5. What element hindered and how was it over- 

come? 

6. Explain the two centres of the Middle Ages. 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1 85 

LESSON 12 

Subject : The Papacy and Empire. 
Read Sections 19 and 20. 



Who gained power first, and why? 

How did Gregory build up the Papacy ? 

After Gregory what happened ? 

How did Charles the Great gain power ? 

What was the value of Charles to Christianity ? 



1 86 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 13 

Subject : The Power of Monasticism. 
Read Sections 21 and 22. 

1. Where was learning promoted, and with what 

result on monasticism ? 

2. What movement started at the Monastery of 

Cluny ? How did these monks effect the 
people ? 

3. How did Gregory Hildebrand gain his power ? 

4. How did he exercise it over King Henry ? 

5. Was Gregory right in his requirements? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1 8/ 

LESSON 14 

Subject: Crusades and Inquisition. 
Read Section 23 (i) and (2). 

1. What was the result of the increased power 

of the Pope ? 

2. What were the Crusades ? How many were 

there ? 

3. Describe Godfrey of Bouillon. 

4. What were heretics ? 

5. How were they treated, especially the Albi- 

genses ? 

6. What kind of Christianity did the Pope of 

Rome require ? 



1 88 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 15 

Subject : St. Francis of Assissi. 
Read Section 23 (3). 

1. Amidst all this dark period were there any- 

true and noble Christians ? 

2. What was the early life of St. Francis ? 

3. How did he try to organize Christianity ? 

4. What other Order of Christianity was estab- 

lished ? 

5. What change took place through the preach- 

ing of the monks ? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1 89 

LESSON 16 

Subject : Abuse of Papal Power. 
Read Sections 24 and 25. 

1. What was the duty of the Pope at this time? 

2. Instead of doing their duty, what did the 

Popes do ? 

3. What was the cHmax in 1 302 ? 

4. What was the effect on people of this schism ? 

5. What did the Council of Constance proclaim ? 



190 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 17 

Subject : Wiclif and Huss. 
Read Section 25 (i) and (2). 

1 . Where is the movement for the reform of the 

Papacy best seen ? 

2. Give an account of Wichf 's Hfe and the three 

things he asserted. 

3. Where did Huss live ? How did he live and 

what were his teachings ? 

4. What happened at the Council of Constance ? 

5. What was the result of the death of Huss? 



OUTLINE OF DIVISION TWO 



191 



192 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 18 

Subject : Dawn of the Reformation. 
Read Sections 26 and 27. 

1. What three events changed the aspect of 

Christianit>^ in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries ? 

2. What country awoke to a new religious Hfe 

first, and why ? 

3. Give an account of the life of Luther up to 

the Diet of Worms. 

4. Give an account of the Diet. 

5. How was Luther able to accomplish his 

reform ? 

6. What were the changes in the religious life 

of Germany ? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 193 

LESSON 19 

Subject : Reformation in France. 
Read Section 28. 

1. How did the Reformation in France differ 

from that in Germany ? 

2. How did John Calvin come to the front ? 

3. What did he do at Geneva ? 

4. What was the value of Calvin ? 

5. Tell what you can about Servetus. 



194 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 20 

Subject: Reformation in England. 
Read Section 29 (i) and (2). 

1. Give the reasons for England's ability to 

throw off the Papacy. 

2. Give the three Fundamental movements of 

the Reformation to this point. 

3. Who, and what kind of a man, was the 

central figure in the English Reformation ? 

4. About what question did the Reformation 

centre ? And what three measures were 
the result ? 

5. Tell (a) about the translation of the Bible, 

(b) the compiling of the Prayer Book. 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1 95 

LESSON 21 

Subject : Reformation in England (Continued). 
Read Section 29 (3) (4) (5) and (6). 

1. What was the result of the Monastic order 

in England ? 

2. Who succeeded Henry, with what results ? 

3. Describe the terrible reaction under Mary I. 

4. What was the cause of the Spanish Armada ? 

5. What was the result, and how do Englishmen 

regard it ? 



196 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 22 

Subject : Counter Reform. 
Read Section 30. 

1. While the Protestants were reforming, what 

were the Roman CathoHcs doing ? 

2. Give an account of the Hfe of Loyola. 

3. What order did he found and what was its 

idea? 

4. W^here and how did the Roman Church de- 

fine her beliefs ? 

5. Why does she not contribute to the advance 

of civilization ? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1 97 

LESSON 23 

Subject : Protestantism. 
Read Sections 31 and 32. 

1. How was the Christianity of the Middle Ages 

organized ? 

2. What did the Protestants do ? 

3. What is true freedom ? 

4. How did freedom in rehgious matters affect 

the middle and peasant classes ? 

5. How did those classes affect the Church ? 



198 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 24 

Subject : Oliver Cromwell. 
Read Section 32 (i). . 

1. What kind of a man was Cromwell? 

2. How did he get control of Parliament ? 

3. How did he use his control ? 

4. What happened after his death ? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 1 99 

LESSON 25 

Subject : Milton and Bunyan. 
Read Section 32 (2) and (3). 

1 . As what is Milton remembered ? 

2. What was Milton's early training ? 

3. What is " Paradise Lost " ? 

4. What can you tell about the early life of 

Bunyan? 

5. For what is he remembered ? 

6. What is the defect of the book? 



200 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 26 

Subject : The Failures and Faults of Protestantism. 
Read Sections 33, 34 and 35. 

1. Give the cause of and describe Puritan Emi- 

gration. 

2. Why did Puritanism fall ? 

3. What is the value and harm of denomina- 

tions ? ■ 

4. Give a short account of (i) Presbyterians, (2) 

Congregationalists, (3) Baptists, (4) Qua- 
kers. 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 20I 

LESSON 27 

Subject : Reaction and Reason. 
Read Sections 36 and 37. 

1. When and how was the King James' Version 

of the Bible published ? 

2. How was reaction the result of freedom ? 

3. What were some of the good results of the 

reaction ? 

4. Describe the French Revolution. 

5. What was the difference between the Chris- 

tianity of the Middle Ages and the Refor- 
mation ? What was left for our age ? 



OUTLINE OF DIVISION THREE 



202 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 203 

LESSON 28 

Subject: John Wesley. 
Read Section 38. 

1. What movement introduced the revival of 

true Christianity ? 

2. Give an account of John's early life and the 

"Holy Club." 

3. What were Wesley's relations to the English 

Church ? 

4. What happened after Wesley's death ? 

5 . What was Jhe value of Methodism ? 



204 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 29 

Subject : Intellectual Beginnings. 
Read Sections 39 and 40. 

1. During Wesley's work what else was taking 

place? 

2. What do you know about Kant, why is he 

mentioned in the history of Christianity ? 

3. Give the name and early life of the founder 

of our present theological ideas. 

4. Give the three positions he took. 

5. How did Schleiermacher effect Christianity? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 205 

LESSON 30 

Subject : Results of New Life. 
Read Sections 41, 42 and 43. 

1. Describe the spirit of reaction. 

2. Describe the Oxford movement and give the 

reasons for its being. 

3. Give a short account of the history and pur- 

pose of the Sunday-school. 

4. Show how public education is due to Chris- 

tianity. 



205 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 31 

Subject : David Livingstone. 
Read Sections 44 and 45. 

1. What was the missionary movement after the 

Reformation ? 

2. Give an account of Livingstone's early life. 

3. What did he accomplish on his first African 

journey ? 

4. What on his second and third ? 

5. What kind of a Christian was Livingstone? 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 20/ 

LESSON 32 

Subject : Lord Shaftesbury. 
Read Section 46. 

1. Give description of Shaftesbury's early life. 

2. What was his life in Parliament? 

3. Describe his reforms among (i) tenement 

houses, (2) costermongers. 

4. To what was his greatness due ? 

5. What did Gladstone say of him? 



208 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

LESSON 33 

Subject : William E. Gladstone. 
Read Section 47. 

1. What was Mr. Gladstone's early life? 

2. Where did he spend most of his life ? 

3. What were the two great achievements of his 

life? Explain each. 

4. What were his religious customs ? 

5. Give an account of his death. 



THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 



209 



LESSON 34 

Subject : Bishop Brooks. 
Read Section 48. 

1. What was the foundation of Bishop Brooks's 

greatness ? 

2. What was his early home and school life ? 

3. Why did he turn to the ministry ? 

4. Give an outline of his life. 

5 . What was the great work of his life ? 

6. How did he effect Christianity ? 

7. How is his memory perpetrated ? 



OUTLINE OF DIVISION FOUR 



2IO 



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